Will Donald Trump be kept off California's ballot? State leader calls on election officials to explore options

California Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis asked the state's top election official Wednesday to explore "every legal option" to remove former President Donald Trump from the Golden State's primary ballot.

The request comes a day after the Colorado Supreme Court ruled Trump doesn't qualify for its primary ballot. The court argued Trump participated in an insurrection culminating in the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and he is therefore ineligible for office under the terms of the 14th Amendment.

The decision, which will almost certainly be considered by the U.S. Supreme Court, could have major implications for the 2024 election and thrust the courts into the center of a particularly fraught election season.

"California must stand on the right side of history. California is obligated to determine if Trump is ineligible for the California ballot for the same reasons described in" the Colorado case, Kounalakis wrote in a letter addressed to Secretary of State Shirley Weber.

The California primary is scheduled for March 5, 2024, and the list of approved candidates is due next week. The state is overwhelmingly Democratic, with nearly 47% of voters registered as Democrats and only around 24% registered as Republicans, according to the Public Policy Institute of California. Democrats control all of California's statewide offices and have a supermajority in each chamber of the state legislature.

"Once again, Democrats are salivating at any opportunity to deprive Republican voters of a full slate of candidates for our nation’s highest office," California Republican Party Chairwoman Jessica Millan Patterson said in a statement Wednesday. "California Democrats need to quit meddling in Republicans’ primary and leave this decision to California voters.”

The Colorado Supreme Court issued a 4-3 opinion to disqualify Trump from the ballot Tuesday evening, but said it would stay its own ruling until early January. That gives the Trump campaign time to appeal, which will put the Constitution's insurrection clause before the high court.

Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, written in the wake of the Civil War, bars someone from holding office if they swore an oath to support the Constitution and then "engaged in insurrection."

"We do not reach these conclusions lightly. We are mindful of the magnitude and weight of the questions now before us," the majority opinion of the Colorado court read. "We are likewise mindful of our solemn duty to apply the law, without fear or favor, and without being swayed by public reaction to the decisions that the law mandates we reach."

It's unclear when the Supreme Court would consider the case, but Trump would remain eligible for Colorado's ballot as long as his appeal is pending.

John Fritze contributed.