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Following this ruling, Colorado Common Cause and former Colorado Secretary of State Mary Estill Buchanan filed an amicus brief in the Colorado Supreme Court asserting that former President Donald Trump should be excluded from the ballot under the 14th Amendment for his role in the January 6th insurrection. Specifically, Common Cause’s amicus brief urges that the Court affirm the findings of the District Court that Donald Trump engaged in insurrection against the Constitution of the United States, and that the Court reverse the finding that the disqualification clause does not apply to the presidency.

Several law professors as well as Colorado Common Cause and the Constitutional Accountability Center, which advocates for a progressive reading of the founding document, urged the state’s justices to bar Trump from the state’s ballot. The filing from Common Cause, a government watchdog group, called it “a great credit to prior generations of American political leaders” that the disqualification clause of the Constitution had so rarely been invoked — but argued this case rose to that standard. “The fact that the Disqualification Clause is so clearly implicated at this hour, then, is a proportionally great discredit to Mr. Trump himself, who allowed a lust for power to supersede his own Oath of Office and over two centuries of American political precedent,” the filing reads.

Top Grassroots Lobbyists Aaron Scherb, Common Cause

A former Republican Colorado secretary of state, Mary Estill Buchanan, joined advocacy group Colorado Common Cause in an amicus brief supporting the plaintiffs’ case, telling the court that “this country and its institutions are at a crossroads.” “(Trump) allowed a lust for power to supersede his own Oath of Office and over two centuries of American political precedent. Mr. Trump has sought at every turn to inject chaos into our country’s electoral system in the upcoming 2024 presidential election,” the brief said. “He should be given no opportunity to do so in the state of Colorado.”

Buchanan joined the advocacy group Colorado Common Cause in making that argument in a brief they submitted as part of a case over whether Trump should be disqualified under a Civil War-era provision of the 14th Amendment. “This country and its institutions are at a crossroads,” the brief says. “Either the plain mandates of our Constitution will be honored and enforced in the face of partisan outcry (thus preserving the rule of law in America) or they will be subverted to avoid that same partisan outcry (eroding the rule of law accordingly). There is no third future. It would be an error of historical scale to pretend otherwise.” Buchanan and Colorado Common Cause write in their brief that Wallace got her ruling right except for deciding Section 3 doesn’t apply to the presidency, a component they say is “reversible.” “(Trump) allowed a lust for power to supersede his own Oath of Office and over two centuries of American political precedent. Mr. Trump has sought at every turn to inject chaos into our country’s electoral system in the upcoming 2024 presidential election,” they write. “He should be given no opportunity to do so in the state of Colorado.”

Stephen Spaulding, vice president of policy at the good government group Common Cause, told The Daily Beast that the Sheehy-Zinke relationship—consisting of major campaign contributions, federal contracts, and favorable legislation—was the exact kind of “pungent mix” that gives voters the impression that elected officials put corporate money over the public interest. Americans, Spaulding said, are “rightly turned off” by such relationships. “It’s what gives rise to corruption and the appearance of corruption, and the perception that the public interest is taking a back seat to a corporation’s bottom line,” Spaulding said. “It is all too common in Washington and it’s why we need to strengthen laws to guard against pay to play politics.” Spaulding, of Common Cause, told The Daily Beast that he couldn’t think of any precedent where a sitting senator owned a private company that held federal contracts. Elected officials should observe “the highest ethical standards,” he said, and argued Sheehy’s constituents deserve to know whether he will cut all ties, including divestiture. “That should include severing any ties once in office from their former business that profits from government contracts,” Spaulding said.