Oregon’s top court said it would wait until the U.S. Supreme Court acts.
The Oregon Supreme Court on Friday declined to hear a 14th Amendment-related case to remove former President Donald Trump from the state’s ballots, saying it will wait for a U.S. Supreme Court decision before taking any action.
In a one-page statement, the state’s top court wrote that it would not “for now” hear a challenge issued by five Oregon voters seeking to bar the former president from ballot access in the 2024 Republican primary and general election.
The voters had asked the court to direct the Oregon secretary of state to disqualify the former president under the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, although the secretary, Democrat Lavonne Griffin-Valade, wrote she had no authority under state law to do so.
Because the U.S. Supreme Court took up an appeal of a decision handed down last month by the Colorado Supreme Court to block President Trump from appearing on state ballots, the Oregon Supreme Court noted that the arguments presented in the court decision “are identical to some arguments advanced by” the voters. The Colorado high court had ruled that the 14th Amendment’s Section 3 bars individuals who have engaged in an “insurrection or rebellion” from appearing on state ballots.
A majority of the Colorado court’s judges had argued that they believed the former president engaged in an insurrection relating to the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The former president has not been charged with or convicted of carrying out an insurrection against the U.S. government.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court said last week that it would review the Colorado Supreme Court decision. Justices are slated to hear arguments in that case on Feb. 8.
“Oregon’s presidential primary ballots must be finalized by March 21, 2024. Because a decision by the United States Supreme Court regarding the Fourteenth Amendment issue may resolve one or more contentions that [the voters] make in the Oregon proceeding, the Oregon Supreme Court denied their petition for mandamus, by order, but without prejudice to their ability to file a new petition seeking resolution of any issue that may remain following a decision by the United States Supreme Court,” the Oregon Supreme Court wrote Friday.
