KITSAP COUNTY, Wash. — Just a day after former President Donald Trump decisively won the Iowa Republican Caucus, a group of voters in Kitsap County met with a judge as they fought to remove him from the primary ballot.
However, Kitsap County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Bassett refused to hear the case, suggesting instead the venue change and petitioners take the case to Olympia.
"I'm concluding, given their unique position as the seat of our state government, we are not the appropriate site for this action today and I decline to hear it," Bassett said.
School teacher Frankey Ithaka, who will take the case to Olympia later this week, argues the former president participated in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. She believes that invalidates Trump from office.
The 14th Amendment bars from office anyone who once took an oath to uphold the Constitution but then “engaged” in “insurrection or rebellion” against it. Some legal scholars say the post-Civil War clause applies to Trump after his role in trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election and encouraging his backers to storm the U.S. Capitol.
"That disqualifies him from running for president and so he has no place on the ballot," Ithaka said.
In a statement to KING 5, the state's GOP called the challenge "unserious" and "theatrical nonsense." Regardless, the party said it will continue to defend the process in court.
Maine and Colorado previously had similar cases that ruled Trump could not appear on primary ballots in those states. Trump has appealed both rulings.
The U.S. Supreme Court agreed earlier this month to hear a case to decide whether Trump can be kept off the ballot, with arguments scheduled for early February.
In December, Colorado's Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that Trump should not be on the Republican primary ballot. This was the first time the 14th Amendment was used to bar a presidential contender from the ballot.
Trump is separately appealing to the state court a ruling by Maine’s Democratic secretary of state, Shenna Bellows, that he was ineligible to appear on that state’s ballot over his role in the Capitol attack. The Colorado Supreme Court and the Maine secretary of state’s rulings are on hold until the appeals play out.
Three of the nine Supreme Court justices were appointed by Trump, though they have repeatedly ruled against him in 2020 election-related lawsuits, as well as his efforts to keep documents related to Jan. 6 and his tax returns from being turned over to congressional committees.