Kansas Republicans and the Amicus Briefs

Article/Elections and Federal Affairs

In December, the Colorado Supreme Court declared that former President and current Presidential candidate Donald Trump is ineligible for the White House due to his role on January 6, 2021.

“A majority of the court holds that Trump is disqualified from holding the office of president under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment,” the court wrote in its 4-3 decision.

The 14th Amendment was passed in 1868 after the Civil War as part of the Reconstruction Era of the United States. The Amendment was written specifically to bar Confederates from holding office due to their part in the war.

Using the same criteria, Maine Secretary of State Sheena Bellows also barred Trump from the state’s ballot later that same month. However, an appeal of that decision is on hold pending the U.S. Supreme Court outcome.

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear Trump’s plea to stay on the Colorado ballot Earlier in January.

Two separate amicus briefs were filed on January 18, both including Republicans from Kansas.

An amicus brief is a legal brief filed in appellate courts by either groups or individuals who are not directly a part of the legal case but hold valuable expertise or insights they can offer to help assist a court in making a decision.

The first amicus brief is led by the Kansas Republican Party and is joined by 30 other state and territorial Republican Parties including Alabama, American Samoa, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virgina, West Virgina, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

“Our brief argues that any state or territory unilaterally removing any qualified candidate for President of the United States from their states ballot causes a harm to Republicans in all other states and territories,” an email breaking the news from the Kansas GOP states. “This obvious abuse of the Fourteenth Amendment reduces the likelihood of a candidate’s overall success in accumulating delegates to win the Republican nomination for president of the United States of America.”

The amicus brief was written by Christopher McGowne and Craig Uhrich—two lawyers from Oakley, KS.

The second amicus brief was written by three Missouri lawyers—Robert Thompson, Barbara Smith, and Zoe Brannon—for a coalition of 11 Secretaries of State including Missouri, Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Tennessee, and West Virginia.

According to a press release from the Kansas Secretary of State Office, Scott Schwab joined the coalition that is “urging the U.S. Supreme Court to narrowly define who can disqualify a presidential candidate from ballot access under the Fourteenth Amendment.”

The secretaries are requesting in their brief that the ruling specifically determine that Secretaries of State do not have authority to determine when the Fourteenth Amendment should be invoked.

On February 8, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear the Colorado appeal.

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