A Cook County judge ruled that the Illinois State Election Board must remove former President Donald Trump’s name from the state’s March 19 primary on Wednesday. But he suspended his order until Friday to allow an appeal.
Judge Tracie Porter issued her decision after a group of voters seeking to remove Trump’s name from the primary during the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol sued to challenge the elections board’s unanimous rejection of her effort . The five electors argued that Trump is unfit to hold office because he encouraged and did little to stop the Capitol riot.
The case is one of dozens of lawsuits filed to remove Trump from the ballot, arguing he is ineligible because of a rarely used clause in the 14th Amendment that bars those “engaged in insurrection” from holding office . The U.S. Supreme Court earlier this month signaled it will likely reject that strategy when it heard an appeal of a Colorado ruling removing Trump from the ballot there. Like the Illinois decision, Colorado’s is on hold until the appeal is concluded.
Porter, in his 38-page ruling, wrote that the voters’ group’s petition should have been granted because they had fulfilled their burden and the election board’s decision was “clearly erroneous.”
“This is a historic victory,” said Ron Fein, legal director of Free Speech For People, co-lead counsel in the case. “Every court or official who has examined the merits of Trump’s constitutional eligibility has found that he engaged in insurrection after being sworn in and is therefore disqualified from the presidency.”
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung released a statement saying that “an activist Democratic judge in Illinois has summarily overruled the state elections board and contradicted previous decisions by dozens of other state and federal jurisdictions. This is an unconstitutional sentence which we will promptly appeal.”
Porter said his order would be suspended if the Supreme Court’s ruling was ultimately “inconsistent” with his.