(PatriotWise.com) – Attorneys for Donald Trump last Thursday appealed an Illinois judge’s decision to remove the former president from the state primary ballot, CBS News reported.
Cook County Judge Tracie Porter ruled last Wednesday to remove Trump from the March 19 Republican primary ballot after a group of Illinois voters challenged the State Board of Elections’ unanimous decision to allow Trump’s name to appear.
On March 4, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that states may not disqualify federal candidates, and that only Congress has the power to rule on and enforce the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. This ruling means that Trump is back on the ballot in the three states that removed him, Maine, Colorado, and Illinois.
In her ruling in Colorado, Porter wrote that the Board of Elections’ January decision was “clearly erroneous.” Citing the Colorado Supreme Court ruling in December, Porter claimed that on his January 4 statement of candidacy to run in the Illinois primary, Trump’s assertion that he was legally qualified to run for office was false because he had already been found to have engaged in “insurrection” at the time.
Free Speech For People Legal Director Ron Fein, who represented the Illinois voters in the case, described Porter’s decision as a “historic victory.”
Meanwhile, Trump campaign spokesman Steve Cheung blasted Judge Porter as an “activist Democrat judge” and described her ruling as “unconstitutional.”
Judge Porter placed a hold on her ruling until Friday, March 1 to allow time for Trump to appeal the decision.
Trump’s attorneys appealed Porter’s decision to the Illinois Appellate Court.
With the appeal filed, Judge Porter granted a motion from Trump’s attorneys to keep her order on hold until the appeals process is resolved. In her decision, Porter wrote that her order would remain on hold if the decision reached by the US Supreme Court in the challenge to Colorado’s ruling was “inconsistent” with hers.
Illinois is one of several states in which voters and far-left groups have challenged Trump’s eligibility to run for office under Section Three of the 14th Amendment which bars officials who previously swore an oath to the Constitution from holding office if they engaged in insurrection.
The US Supreme Court heard arguments on the Colorado Supreme Court ruling in early February, during which the Justices appeared skeptical of the state high court’s decision. The court issued a unanimous decision March 4 barring states from removing federal candidates from election ballots through the use of the 14th Amendment.
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