Who Is Tracie Porter? Illinois Judge Who Kicked Trump off Ballot

Donald Trump pictured on February 24, 2024 in Columbia, South Carolina (left) and Cook County Circuit Judge Tracie Porter (right). On Wednesday Porter ruled Donald Trump should be removed from the Republican primary ballot for Illinois.

On Wednesday, Cook County Circuit Judge Tracie Porter ruled that Donald Trump is barred from appearing on the ballot for next month’s Illinois Republican primary thanks to the “insurrection clause” contained within the Constitution’s 14^th Amendment.

This states no person shall “hold any office, civil or military” who having taken an oath to “support the Constitution,” then engaged in “insurrection or rebellion.” Trump’s critics argue his attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election result, during which hundreds of his supporters stormed Congress on January 6, 2021, constituted a rebellion, making him constitutionally ineligible to serve as president again.

Porter’s ruling doesn’t take effect until Friday to give Trump’s legal team time to appeal. Trump has consistently rejected the argument he is ineligible to serve again as president under the 14^th Amendment and has suggested it is politically motivated. The former president has already been removed from primary ballots in Colorado and Maine, but both decisions are being appealed.

On February 8, the Supreme Court held two hours of oral argument over whether Trump is eligible to appear on the Colorado ballot, during which a number of judges raised pointed concerns over the impact excluding the former president, and 2024 Republican frontrunner, would have on American democracy.

Porter, a Democrat, joined the Cook County Circuit Court for Illinois in November 2021 and in November 2022, won an election to retain the post. Her current term in office is due to expire in December 2028.

Porter grew up in the Englewood community of Chicago, according to her page on the Cook County Democratic Party website. She received a bachelor’s degree from Cornell College then studied at Drake University Law School for her Juris Doctorate degree.

Before joining the Circuit Court of Cook County, Porter worked as a lawyer, with licenses to practice in both New York and Illinois, and law professor. She is both an adjunct professor of law at Drake University Law School and a professor of law at Abraham Lincoln University School of Law.

Earlier in her career, Porter’s specialized in real estate law which she worked on at a number of private practices including Barnes & Thornburg LLP.

She also served with the Office of the Solicitor in the U.S. Department of Labor as a litigation attorney between 1994 and 1998.

Porter is associated with a number of professional bodies including the American Bar Association, the Black Women Lawyers’ Association of Greater Chicago, Inc, and Los Angeles and the Black Entertainment and Sports Law Association.

According to her profile on the Illinois State Bar Association website, Porter is “the proud aunt and surrogate mother to two nieces and two nephews” and currently lives in Country Club Hills.

In filings submitted to the Supreme Court earlier this month, Trump’s legal team argued the president of the United States doesn’t constitute an “office,” meaning the Republican frontrunner can’t be blocked from running for the post under Article 14 of the Constitution.

One of his attorneys said: “The president is not ‘appointed’ by the Electoral College; he is elected. And only an appointed and not an elected official can be an ‘officer of the United States.”

The team also denied Trump’s actions before and after the January 6, 2021 Capitol Hill riot constituted an insurrection.

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