Four Colorado Republican officials, including Representative Lauren Boebert, on Monday threatened to recall Secretary of State Jena Griswold for attempting to remove former president Donald Trump from the state’s primary ballot, an effort that was unanimously rejected by the Supreme Court hours earlier.
In a brief letter, the undersigned Colorado Republicans accused Griswold, a Democrat, of trying to “disenfranchise millions of Coloradans” and making a “selfish political decision to rig the primary election” against Trump. Boebert led the letter alongside Colorado GOP chairman Dave Williams, Colorado GOP vice chairwoman Hope Scheppelman, and Colorado GOP secretary Anna Ferguson.
“With today’s unanimous decision by the Supreme Court of the United States to keep President Donald J. Trump on the Colorado primary ballot, it is now even more clear Coloradans should have zero faith in you to adequately protect their right to vote and oversee elections in the state of Colorado,” the letter states.
“Our Supreme Court justices may not align on everything, but they absolutely agree that your reckless attempt to throw President Donald J. Trump off the ballot should be thoroughly rebuked,” it adds.
Boebert and her fellow colleagues declared the Colorado Republican Party will consider “all legal options available to us . . . including a formal recall effort,” they wrote in the letter, as part of a grassroots movement to hold Griswold accountable for undermining Trump’s ballot eligibility.
On Monday, Griswold said she was “disappointed” in the Supreme Court’s decision in favor of Trump. Colorado’s top election official wanted to bar the 2024 GOP frontrunner from the state’s primary ballot because she believes he’s an “oath-breaking [insurrectionist]” due to the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.
The Colorado supreme court initially barred Trump from the ballot in December, citing Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment, which prohibits former government officials from holding office again if they willingly “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the U.S. government. However, it remained unclear if states had the authority to disqualify a former president under the Constitution.
While the three liberal justices were displeased with how their conservative counterparts made the decision, all nine members of the Supreme Court came to the same conclusion: that the insurrection clause can only be enforced by Congress.
“We conclude that States may disqualify persons holding or attempting to hold state office. But States have no power under the Constitution to enforce Section 3 with respect to federal offices, especially the Presidency,” the ruling asserts.
The order was issued the day before Super Tuesday, when more than a dozen states will cast their ballots for the 2024 Republican and Democratic primaries.