Donald Trump fails to dismiss insurrection clause lawsuit

At least one lawsuit seeking to kick Donald Trump off of the 2024 ballot under the insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment is speeding towards a late October trial after a state judge rejected the former president’s free speech arguments and refused to grant his “special motion to dismiss” on Thursday.

Judge Sarah Wallace of the 2nd Judicial District Court in Denver, in a 21-page order, sided with a group of voters represented by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) who, citing Jan. 6, sued in September to “challenge the listing of Respondent Donald J. Trump as a candidate on the 2024 Republican presidential primary election ballot and any future election ballot, based on his disqualification from public office under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.”

The judge noted walked through three separate arguments that the suing voters made to defend their lawsuit against Trump’s assertion that the case was a Strategic Lawsuit Against Participation (SLAPP).

“Petitioners argue that the anti-SLAPP statute does not apply for three reasons: (1) there is no cause of action against Intervenor Trump and he, therefore, lacks standing; (2) this lawsuit falls within the public interest exemption to the anti-SLAPP statute; and (3) the anti-SLAPP statute is incompatible with C.R.S. § 1-1-113 and, therefore, is inapplicable,” the judge summarized.

More Law&Crime coverage: Trump claims the insurrection clause ‘does not apply’ to the president – or prohibit someone from ‘running for office’

Anti-SLAPP suit laws, the judge said, “are intended to enable courts to dismiss frivolous cases brought with the intent to chill a person’s constitutional rights.” But there are certain exemptions tethered to the public interest.

The anti-SLAPP “section does not apply” if “plaintiff does not seek any relief greater than or different from the relief sought for the general public or a class of which the plaintiff is a member”; “[t]he action, if successful, would enforce an important right affecting the public interest and would confer a significant benefit, whether pecuniary or nonpecuniary, on the general public or a large class of persons; [p]rivate enforcement is necessary and places a disproportionate financial burden on the plaintiff in relation to the plaintiff’s stake in the matter.”

Judge Wallace, writing that her ruling had nothing to do with Trump’s politics, said it is clearly in the public interest to have a qualified candidate for president:

The issue before the Court is purely an issue of law and does not turn, in any way, on the identity of the intervenor, or his political opinions. The question before the Court, as to this factor, is simple: would the preclusion of a constitutionally incapable candidate from seeking public office enforce an important right affecting the public interest and confer a significant benefit on the public? The Court, again, has little trouble finding that it would. It goes without saying that, in the abstract, ensuring that only constitutionally qualified candidates can seek to hold the highest office in the country, particularly when the disqualification sought is based on allegations of insurrection against the very government over which the candidate seeks to preside, seeks to enforce an important right which confers a significant benefit to the public. In short, it is in the public’s interest that only qualified and faithful candidates be allowed to seek public office. The Court therefore finds that this condition is met by the allegations in the Petition.

After concluding that the anti-SLAPP statute Trump cited did not apply to the case, the judge said that a scheduled Oct. 13 anti-SLAPP hearing has been changed to a status conference, as the case speeds toward a trial on the merits on Oct. 30.

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