CHICAGO (CN) — An Illinois judge ordered on Wednesday kicking former President Donald Trump off the state's 2024 ballot, citing a similar removal in Colorado based on restrictions in the 14th Amendment.
Cook County Judge Tracie Porter's ruling contradicts the Illinois Board of Elections, which voted unanimously on Jan. 31 to keep Trump on the ballot over objections from a group of voters.
The voters filed an objection to Trump's candidacy based on language in the 14th Amendment, which says that no former U.S. official can hold a civil or military office if they have "engaged in insurrection or rebellion" against the country.
After the board voted to keep Trump on the ballot, the voters' lawyers filed an appeal of that decision where they applied the same logic they presented to the Board of Elections — that Trump is ineligible for the presidency on the basis of 14th Amendment violations due to his involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riots.
Porter leaned heavily on the precedent set by the Colorado Supreme Court in her ruling, where she characterized the Colorado decision not as a "binding precedent, but rather persuasive law."
Nicholas Nelson, one of Trump's attorneys, had argued the insurrection clause talks about officers of the United States, which explicitly excludes the president.
Nelson cited Article II, Section Four of the Constitution, which articulates the impeachment requirements of the “President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States.” He argued that since the clause lists the president and vice president as separate from the other officers of the United States, the 14th Amendment's insurrection clause wouldn’t pertain to the president.
For the question of whether Trump would be considered an officer of the United States, Porter applied the same logic as the Colorado Supreme Court and examined dictionaries from the time period when the amendment was written.
She examined "the meanings of the words 'office,' 'officers,' 'insurrection, 'engaged' and 'oath'," and concluded that "the plain language and plain meanings of Section 3, applies to the former president now seeking to hold office again as the President of the United States," she wrote.
Porter's ruling is on hold until Friday, in anticipation of a decision from the U.S. Supreme Court, which heard arguments regarding the Colorado Supreme Court case on Feb. 8.
Supreme Court justices indicated that they could issue a ruling as soon as Super Tuesday in early March.
During the voters' appeal to Porter, attorneys played footage from the House Special Committee that investigated the Jan. 6 insurrection during the court proceedings for the appeal. The video showed a speech Trump gave to his supporters where he told them, “If you don’t fight like hell, you aren’t going to have a country anymore.”
Trump's attorneys objected to the video and deemed it an inaccurate depiction of events by a politically motivated committee.
Prior to the Board of Elections vote on whether to keep Trump on the ballot, hearing officer and former judge Clark Erickson issued a ruling where he found that Trump had engaged in insurrection, but the board lacked the constitutional authority to make that decide if that should bar him from the ballot.
"Attempting to resolve a constitutional issue within the expedited schedule of an election board hearing is somewhat akin to scheduling a two-minute round between heavyweight boxers in a telephone booth," Erickson, a Kankakee Republican, wrote in his ruling.
Trump's lawyers argued in court that Jan. 6 was not an insurrection, rather it was an obstruction of justice.
Scott Gessler, a lawyer on the Trump campaign’s team, argued that insurrections have an end political goal or alternative in mind, which the Jan. 6 rioters did not.
"An insurrection has an element of a nullification of government authority across a wide swath of governmental avenues," he said.
The voters' attorneys maintained that preventing the peaceful transfer of power in favor of a particular candidate constitutes a political end goal.
Porter ultimately disagreed with Gessler's characterization of Jan. 6 and reiterated Erickson's findings that Trump did, in fact, engage in insurrection.
Aside from Colorado and now Illinois, Maine has also issued a ruling to remove Trump from their 2024 primary ballot.
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