Colorado’s state Supreme Court ruled that a petition gatherer working for Rep. Doug Lamborn’s campaign did not live in the state at the time rendering the signatures he gathered invalid. | Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call Colorado Supreme Court boots Rep. Lamborn off primary ballot

Colorado’s state Supreme Court ruled Monday that GOP Rep. Doug Lamborn cannot appear on the primary ballot in his district because of a problem with his ballot petitions.

The court ruled that a petition gatherer working for Lamborn’s campaign did not live in the state at the time, rendering the signatures he gathered invalid and moving Lamborn below the threshold for ballot access in his conservative district.


“Therefore, the supreme court holds that the Secretary [of State] may not certify Representative Lamborn to the 2018 primary ballot for Colorado’s Fifth Congressional District,” the court ruled.

The decision overruled Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams, whose office had certified Lamborn to the primary ballot using a broader interpretation of the state residency requirement for petition gatherers. But Deputy Secretary of State Suzanne Staiert said Lamborn could “go to the federal court and ask them to strike the residency requirement.”

“The Colorado Supreme Court just provided an avenue to have a federal court strike down residency requirements for candidate circulators,” Staiert said in a statement. “The federal court has already struck down that requirement for circulators for ballot initiatives, who are allowed to be from out of state. This is a dangerous precedent that disregards the voters’ intent.”

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Ryan Call, an attorney for Lamborn’s campaign, said Lamborn intends to file a federal appeal.

“We believe, quite frankly, denying a sitting congressman the right to participate in a primary election where the residency of the circulator denies the otherwise valid petition signatures is unconstitutional,” Call said. “We intend to file an action in federal district court, and there are a number of cases that find that the residency requirement for circulators as unconstitutional.”

Earlier this month, state Treasurer Walker Stapleton, a Republican candidate for governor, withdrew his petitions after he acknowledged that his campaign submitted fraudulent petitions to qualify for the primary ballot. Stapleton and Lamborn's campaigns both used the same signature-gathering firm. Stapleton later managed to qualify for the primary by party convention vote, the other avenue to ballot access under Colorado law.

If the state Supreme Court’s decision holds, two other Republican candidates will fight each other for the GOP nomination: Owen Hill, a state senator, and Darryl Glenn, an El Paso County Commissioner who lost a 2016 challenge to Sen. Michael Bennet. Glenn qualified for the ballot through petitions in February, while Hill gained access through the party’s convention in April.

Lamborn holds a sizable cash-on-hand advantage over his two Republican challengers, even as both opponents boast their own conservative backers. Hill picked up an endorsement from Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul.

Lamborn has faced a number of close calls for renomination in the past. He was nearly knocked out of Congress in 2016 when Calandra Vargas, a first-time candidate, delivered a show-stopping speech at the state Republican convention and drew 58 percent of the vote there. Lamborn, who received 35 percent of the vote, was just 18 votes over the convention threshold for ballot access.

The six-term congressman has also faced stiff primary challenges.

In 2006, Lamborn, then a state legislator, won the nomination over Republican Jeff Crank, who was endorsed by retiring Rep. Joel Hefley. Crank sought a rematch in 2008, but Lamborn hung on to win renomination with a plurality of the primary vote: 44 percent. In 2014, Republican Bentley Rayburn, a retired Air Force general, nearly toppled Lamborn again, challenging him over potential military base closings.

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