BREAKING: Trump removed from Illinois ballot

The ruling just in from Cook County Circuit Judge Tracie Porter removes former President Donald Trump from the Illinois ballot just twenty days before the March 19 primary.

The ruling was essentially following many of the same arguments of Colorado’s ruling to remove Trump from the ballot in that state based on the 14th Amendment. The Supreme Court is widely expected to overturn that ruling.

That didn’t stop Porter from wading in on the issue.

“Until the U.S. Supreme Court renders a decision in the [case], now pending before it, reviewing courts are still under a constitutional obligation to apply and interpret the law, and especially, continue the momentum of the electoral process in light of the March general primary elections,” Porter wrote, essentially explaining why she didn’t wait for the Supreme Court ruling.

Porter said she read dictionaries from the post-Civil War reconstruction era to learn if the amendment was written in a way that an “insurrection” applies to a former President today. She said a plain language reading does apply to Trump.

“This court’s final determination on this issue is that [Trump] fails to meet the Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment’s disqualification provision based on engaging in insurrection on January 6, 2021, and his name should be removed from the ballot,” Porter wrote in her 38 page order.

Porter stayed her own ruling until March 1 to allow for the Appellate Court of the Illinois Supreme Court to rule on an appeal, which is almost guaranteed to come. It is also stayed until the Supreme Court rules on the issue, meaning early and mail votes for Trump can still be cast.

You can read the ruling here.