The Colorado Supreme Court declared on Tuesday that former President Donald Trump is unable to run for president of the United States due to his involvement in his supporters’ attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, and he cannot appear on the primary ballot.

Trump is the first presidential candidate to be declared ineligible for the White House under a rarely used constitutional provision that prohibits officials who have engaged in “insurrection or rebellion” from holding office, thanks to the historic 4-3 ruling by the Colorado Supreme Court, which is expected to be upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The decision only affects Colorado’s Republican primary on March 5 but may impact Trump’s standing in the state on general election day on November 5. Partisan U.S. election observers believe Colorado is solidly Democratic, which suggests that President Joe Biden will likely win the state regardless of what happens to Donald Trump there.

The Colorado court said that it would postpone the implementation of its verdict until at least January 4, 2024, to allow for an appeal, and Trump threatened to take the case to the United States Supreme Court.

The decision paves the way for the Supreme Court, which has three Trump appointees and a 6-3 conservative majority, to decide whether or not to grant Trump a second term as president.

The action is seen as a trial run for a more significant attempt to remove Trump from state ballots under the 14th Amendment’s Section 3, which was written during the American Civil War to bar Confederate sympathizers from holding public office.

The Colorado court found that because Trump incited violence at the Capitol during lawmakers’ meetings to certify the results of the 2020 election, the U.S. Constitution prohibits the front-runner for the Republican nomination in 2024 from being included on the ballot. Most of the court recognized that the ruling was “uncharted territory.”

“These are not lightly reached conclusions,” most judges wrote. “We recognize the importance and gravity of the questions that are currently in front of us. We are also conscious of our grave responsibility to uphold the law, free from fear or favor, and unaffected by the opinions of the general public on the choices that the law requires us to make.”

The Trump campaign referred to the ruling as “undemocratic.” A Trump campaign official declared, “We will immediately file an appeal to the United States Supreme Court after the Colorado Supreme Court issued a completely flawed decision tonight.”

The result overturns a lower court judge’s finding that Trump incited violence against his followers to commit insurrection. Still, the judge also decided that Trump was not an “officer of the United States” in his capacity as president and could not be removed from office under the Amendment.

Voters in Colorado

With assistance from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Colorado, voters filed the lawsuit, arguing that Trump should be removed from office for encouraging his followers to attack the Capitol in an unsuccessful attempt to block Biden’s succession as president following the 2020 election.

President Noah Bookbinder states that the court’s ruling is “not only historic and justified, but is necessary to protect the future of democracy in our country.”

Several lawsuits attempting to prevent Trump from appearing on other states’ primary ballots have been denied by courts. The highest court in Minnesota rejected an attempt to remove Trump from the Republican primary in that state. Still, there was no ruling about his eligibility for the presidency in general.

A few supporters had anticipated that the Colorado case would strengthen the disqualification movement and maybe get the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Trump team has denounced 14th Amendment lawsuits as an effort to keep millions of people from selecting the candidate they want to lead them as president.

Trump’s attorneys contended that his address to supporters on the day of the violence was protected by his right to free speech, adding that Congress would have to vote to disqualify a candidate and that the Constitutional Amendment does not apply to presidents of the United States.

Following Tuesday’s decision, three justices of the Colorado Supreme Court dissented. Carlos Samour, one of the dissenting judges, stated in a lengthy opinion that a lawsuit violates Trump’s right to due process and is an unfair means of assessing his eligibility for the vote. He further pointed out that a jury had not found him guilty of rebellion.

“Even if we are convinced that a candidate committed horrible acts in the past—dare I say, engaged in insurrection—there must be procedural due process before we can declare that individual disqualified from holding public office,” Samour stated.