Former President Donald Trump was barred from appearing on Colorado’s 2024 ballot thanks to four Democrat-appointed justices.
Colorado Supreme Court Justices Melissa Hart, Monica Márquez, William Hood and Richard Gabriel comprised the one-vote majority that found on Dec. 19 that Trump engaged in an insurrection and was therefore disqualified under the Fourteenth Amendment from appearing on the Colorado ballot. The judges said they experienced “little difficulty” in arriving at their verdict.
Hart has donated nearly $20,000 to Democrats running in federal elections since 2008, according to Federal Election Commission records, by far the most of any of her colleagues. She donated thousands more to state-level Democrats, according to records maintained by the Colorado secretary of state. (RELATED: Conservative Justices Offer Stinging Dissent On Court’s Decision To Remove Trump From Colorado Ballot)
Hood, meanwhile, has donated over $5,000 to Democratic candidates and groups, according to Ballotpedia. He also hosted a campaign event for former Democratic Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter.
The other two judges who voted to strike Trump from the ballot also donated to Democrats. Márquez gave $115 to Obama and Gabriel gave $600 to assorted Democrats running for federal office, according to FEC records.
None of the Colorado Supreme Court justices, who were also appointed by Democrats, who decided against removing Trump made donations to Democrats running for federal office, according to FEC records.
(Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
Hart currently works as a professor at the University of Colorado Law School.
As a professor, she published papers arguing that racial discrimination is a significant problem in the workplace and that existing laws don’t do enough to combat it, as well as papers arguing that women are discriminated against in law, specifically on the purported gender pay gap in the field.
Hart and her colleagues all draw six-figure salaries for their work on the Colorado Supreme Court, according to state records.
Gabriel has also engaged in some academic work. He stressed the importance of reaching out to “underserved” communities like blacks, homosexuals and Hispanics to teach them about the legal system in an article published by the Bolch Judicial Institute at the Duke University School of Law in 2022.
Márquez, Hart and Gabriel, all of whom attended Ivy League Law Schools, voted to remove Trump from the ballot. Justices Brian Boatright, Carlos Samour and Maria Berkenkotter, meanwhile, are graduates of the University of Denver Sturm College of Law and voted against removing Trump from Colorado’s ballot.
Hood was the only one to vote to remove Trump from the ballot that did not attend an Ivy League law school.
Márquez, Hart and Hood all lead the Center for Legal Inclusiveness’ “Bench Dream Team” where they seek to “increase diversity on the Colorado Bench.” The Center for Legal Inclusiveness believes in the importance of getting more women and non-white people into law.
Márquez also belongs to the Colorado LGBT Bar Association and the Colorado Hispanic Bar Association. She previously served as chair of the Denver mayor’s GLBT Commission.
Márquez is the first open homosexual to serve on Colorado’s Supreme Court, according to the Denver Post.
The Colorado Supreme Court removed the phone numbers for the judges’ offices after the Trump ruling. The numbers can still be accessed through an archive of the webpage.
The effort to get Trump off the ballot was spearheaded by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a group backed by billionaire and Democrat megadonor George Soros.
Foundation to Promote Open Society and Open Society Policy Center, both founded and funded by Soros, funded CREW to the tune of $2.85 million between 2017 and 2021, according to a grant database.
CREW also sent a letter to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in May calling on him to resign.
CREW sued on behalf of “six Republican and unaffiliated Colorado voters” to remove Trump from the state’s ballot. Trump had to be removed from the ballot for “the very fabric of our democracy is to hold,” CREW President Noah Bookbinder said.
Justices Gabriel, Hart, Hood and Márquez did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s requests for comment.
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