Tillis to file bill to prevent states from banning presidential candidates from ballot
The reaction to a decision by the Colorado Supreme Court to keep former President Donald Trump off the state’s 2024 primary ballot was swift.
Sen. Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, immediately announced his plans to file the Constitutional Election Integrity Act. If signed into law, state politicians or other entities could not disqualify presidential candidates from a state ballot based on Constitutional matters. It would ensure that decisions of that nature would only go before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Colorado’s highest court ruled Tuesday night in a 4-3 decision that Trump’s name would not appear on the state’s primary ballot because of his participation in the events of Jan. 6, 2021, which the justices said disqualified the former president under the 14th Amendment.
“Regardless of whether you support or oppose former President Donald Trump, it is outrageous to see left-wing activists make a mockery of our political system by scheming with partisan state officials and pressuring judges to remove him from the ballot,” Tillis said in a written statement. “American voters, not partisan activists, should decide who we elect as our President.”
North Carolina’s ballot
A federal attorney filed a similar complaint with the North Carolina Board of Elections seeking to disqualify Trump from North Carolina’s ballot, but state election officials tossed the complaint earlier Tuesday.
The North Carolina State Board of Elections concluded that it lacked the authority to hear a challenge on a presidential primary candidate.
The chair of the board, Democrat Alan Hirsch, noted that the decision was subject to appeal should the complainant decide to pursue it.
Siobhan Millen, a Democrat, was the lone member of the board to vote against dismissing the complaint.
“It’s troubling to me we have a voter who’s gone to the trouble to fill out a facially very impressive challenge form and we are, to me, hiding behind a technicality by saying it doesn’t apply, that we won’t even hear it,” she said.
Reacting to Colorado
Tillis, who in recent months has been censured by the North Carolina Republican Party for taking more moderate stances on key issues, is one of three North Carolina Republican members of Congress who voted, on Jan. 6, 2021, to certify the election of President Joe Biden. Rep. Patrick McHenry and former Sen. Richard Burr are the other two.
At the time, Tillis said it would overstep constitutional authority to overturn the states’ election results.
Tillis’ bill calls for preventing states from overstepping their own authority. It would punish any state deemed to have misused the 14th Amendment by prohibiting federal funds from being used in that state’s election administration.
Meanwhile, other North Carolina lawmakers reacted to the news out of Colorado.
Rep. Virginia Foxx, a Republican from Banner Elk, called on Biden to denounce the Colorado ruling.
“This ruling from the Colorado Supreme Court is the greatest due process mockery in the history of our republic,” Foxx said on social media. “SCOTUS must overturn this decision immediately, but the political depravity of the radical left is now fully exposed for all to see.”
Rep. Dan Bishop, a Republican from Charlotte, posted on social media, calling the decision a “parody of judicial decision making.”
The state’s Democrats have remained quiet on the matter.
Legislative review
In the legislature, House Speaker Tim Moore and Election Committee Chairman Grey Mills, both of whom are running for Congress in 2024, announced in a joint statement that in light of the Colorado ruling, they are exploring legislative action to ensure that the state elections board does not have “unchecked authority” to remove a major political party’s nominee from the ballot.
“North Carolina will be a critical state in the upcoming presidential election and removing a leading candidate in this race like President Trump would be an affront to democracy,” Mills and Moore said in the statement.
Moore has endorsed Trump for president.
Trump’s campaign is appealing Colorado’s decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.
This story was originally published December 20, 2023 at 12:11 PM with the headline "Tillis to file bill to prevent states from banning presidential candidates from ballot."
