Oregon Supreme Court keeps Trump on primary ballot

SALEM, Oregon (AP) — Oregon’s Supreme Court on Friday kept former President Donald Trump on the state’s primary ballot, declining to wade into the legal chaos over whether he’s disqualified to be president until the U.S. Supreme Court rules on a similar case out of Colorado.

Oregon was one of several states where liberal groups sued to remove Trump from the ballot under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, a Civil War-era provision that prohibits those who “engaged in insurrection” from holding office. Only one of those lawsuits has been successful so far — in Colorado, which last month ruled that Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol disqualified him from the presidency.

That ruling is on hold until the U.S. Supreme Court hears an appeal by Trump. The nation’s highest court has never ruled on Section 3, which fell into disuse after the 1870s, when most former Confederates were allowed back into government by congressional action.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling may decide the issue once and for all, but the Oregon court said that plaintiffs could try again there after the high court rules on the Colorado appeal. Until then, it declined to consider the lawsuit filed by five Oregon voters and organized by the liberal group Free Speech For The People.