Effort to remove former President Trump from Illinois ballot is allowed to go ahead
CHICAGO (CBS) -- An effort to remove former President Donald Trump from the ballot in Illinois remains in progress – as the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday hears arguments on whether that effort, under way in several states, is actually legal.
Mr. Trump remains on the ballot in Illinois. But the objectors who want him off were given the green light to continue their fight by a Cook County judge Wednesday.
The Trump team had asked that the case be delayed until the U.S. Supreme Court rules on the national effort. That motion was denied.
The push centers on whether Mr. Trump violated the insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment during the assault on the U.S. Capitol back on Jan. 6, 2021.
The anti-Trump team will be back in court next week. The group lost a similar effort last week before the bipartisan Illinois Board of Elections.
A hearing officer for the board retired Republican Kankakee County Judge Clark Erickson, had issued a report finding that while Trump engaged in insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, Illinois Supreme Court precedent prevents the state's Board of Elections from engaging in the "significant and sophisticated constitutional analysis" needed to rule on removing Trump from the ballot.
The insurrection clause, or disqualification clause, is formally Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. Until December, it had never in the nation's history been used to disqualify a presidential candidate.
But that changed when the Colorado Supreme Court concluded that Mr. Trump's conduct related to Jan. 6 deemed him ineligible for the presidency. The court ordered him to be excluded from the state's GOP presidential primary ballot.
If the U.S. Supreme Court they rule in Mr. Trump's favor, most of the efforts to keep him off the ballot - in Illinois, Colorado, Maine, and elsewhere - would likely be tossed out.
U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) on Wednesday took the very rare step of calling on one of the Supreme Court justices - Clarence Thomas - to recuse himself from the case. The reason is that Thomas' wife, Ginni Thomas, had been called before the Jan. 6 Committee behind closed doors...
After Jan. 6, it became public that she was texting with Mr. Trump's chief of staff in an effort to overturn the Trump loss.
"I thought about it long and hard, I've never done this before My feeling is that Justice Thomas has some serious issues that really reflect on the integrity of the United States Supreme Court. This situation where his wife was directly in touch with the Trump administration and the White House during the period of the election denial really says to me he should step aside from this decision for the good and reputation of the court," said Durbin. "It appears he's not going to."
Durbin said Thomas "could have very quietly taken care of this when the standard of ethics came out, but he didn't say anything."
The Supreme Court hears the Colorado case on Thursday and is likely to rule on it by the end of the month – so as to offer clarity to state's having primaries in early March.
In Illinois, all parties are back in court a week from Friday as the question of whether Trump should remain on the ballot in the state takes center stage.