Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft is threatening to remove President Joe Biden from his state’s election ballot in response to other state’s moving to remove former President Donald Trump.
Ashcroft shared his thoughts in a social media post on Friday, saying that the efforts across the country to disqualify Trump based on the insurrection clause in the 14th Amendment were “disgraceful” and “undermines our republic.”
“While I expect the Supreme Court to overturn this, if not, Secretaries of State will step in & ensure the new legal standard for @realDonaldTrump applies equally to @JoeBiden !” Ashcroft wrote on X.
Speaking with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Ashcroft expanded on his point, saying he wasn’t “in favor of going down this path.”
“But if we will go down this path, it’s inevitable if the Supreme Court does not stop this,” Ashcroft told the outlet. “The rules will be applied equally. I just hope they will not be the rules of Colorado and Maine.”
The United States Supreme Court has said it will decide whether or not the ruling from Colorado’s Supreme Court disqualifying Trump from being on the ballot would stand.
In Colorado, Trump was said to have incited his supporters while Congress was certifying Biden’s 2020 election victory on Jan. 6, 2021.
Trump is also appealing a decision from Maine’s secretary of state, who disqualified Trump under the same grounds.
Republicans have been quick to criticize the action, saying that Democrats are undermining the will of voters by moving forward with such actions.
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick suggested that Biden should be taken off the ballot because of how he has handled the southern border.
“Seeing what happened in Colorado tonight … makes me think — except we believe in democracy in Texas — maybe we should take Joe Biden off the ballot in Texas for allowing 8 million people to cross the border since he’s been president, disrupting our state far more than anything anyone else has done in recent history,” Patrick said last month while speaking with Fox News.