The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that former President Donald Trump should be reinstated on Colorado’s ballot.
Katie Dull/NPR
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Katie Dull/NPR
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that former President Donald Trump should be reinstated on Colorado’s ballot.
Katie Dull/NPR
The US Supreme Court reinstated Republican front-runner Donald Trump to the Colorado primary ballot, ruling that the state did not have the authority to disqualify him following his actions during the siege on the US Capitol three years ago.
The unanimous decision came just weeks after the justices heard oral arguments in the politically sensitive case, which puts the high court in the middle of the 2024 presidential election. And it comes a week after the court said it would hear arguments in a case that will answer whether Trump enjoys blanket immunity for his actions on January 6.
In a post on his social media platform Truth, Trump called the opinion a “BIG WIN FOR AMERICA!!!” told. In remarks from his Florida resort a short time later, the former president said the high court’s decision would “go a long way in bringing our country together.”
Six Colorado electors argued that Trump had violated a post-Civil War law that bars people who have taken an oath to support the Constitution from engaging in insurrection or insurrection. Section 3 of the 14th Amendment has never been used against a presidential candidate, and has been used only eight times since 1860.
That sparse record contributed to the high court’s decision on Monday.
The court’s decision concluded, “Because the Constitution makes Congress, rather than the states, responsible for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates, we reverse.”
The ruling explained that post-Civil War lawmakers intended the 14th Amendment to expand federal power at the expense of the states, and that the Constitution “gives Congress the authority to determine” whether “serious” cases of disqualification How to use punishment.
While the judges agreed that Trump could not be removed from the Colorado ballot, they disagreed on how far they would go.
The three liberal-leaning justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, criticized the majority for deciding “important and difficult issues unnecessarily.”
Those justices said the majority overreached when it came to how to enforce Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, essentially creating what they called “a special rule for insurrection disability.”
Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who was appointed by Trump, wrote separately that the court “does not need to address the complex question of whether federal law is the exclusive means” to apply the Insurrection Clause.
“The majority’s decision to part ways leaves the remaining justices with options to respond,” he wrote. “In my view this is not the time to escalate disagreements harshly.”
Barrett added: “The Court has settled a politically charged issue in a volatile presidential election season. Especially in this situation, writing on the Court should lower the national temperature, not raise it.”
The final verdict after oral arguments is not a surprise. The voters’ lawyer, Jason Murray, faced a difficult situation in the Supreme Court, where judges from different ideologies posed tough questions to him.
“What about the idea that we should think about democracy?” asked Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was appointed by Trump. “Because your position has the effect of substantially disenfranchising voters.”
Kagan, an Obama appointee, said, “I think the question you have to grapple with is why a single state should decide who becomes president of the United States.”
Chief Justice John Roberts said he could envision a world in the near future in which some states would try to exclude the Democratic candidate from the ballot, and other states would use Section 3 to do the same for the Republican candidate.
“It’s going to boil down to just a few states that are going to decide the presidential election,” Roberts said. “This is a very difficult outcome.”
Legal experts and election administrators across the country are keeping a close eye on this matter. Many of them had filed friend-of-the-court briefs urging the justices to rule swiftly and decisively before millions of American voters go to the polls.
Janai Nelson, president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, said the court’s majority ignored the plain text of the 14th Amendment, effectively giving “insurrectionists constitutional immunity, absent legislation from Congress.”
The question of Trump’s disqualification in Colorado is playing out in different ways in dozens of other states. Maine’s Secretary of State found Trump ineligible to appear on Maine’s primary ballot, but put the decision on hold pending Trump’s appeal. A judge in Illinois also barred Trump but stayed his decision pending Supreme Court action.
Derek Mueller, an election law professor at Notre Dame, said in a statement that today’s Supreme Court decision “closes the door to Trump’s exclusion from voting in any state, primary or general.”
Trump’s attorney Jonathan Mitchell made several arguments for keeping the former president on the ballot. Among them: Trump does not fall under that part of the Constitution because he took the oath of office in a different manner, and Congress must take action before any candidate can be removed from the ballot and answer key questions about disqualification. May need it.
But Murray, the Colorado voters’ advocate, rejected that idea.
“Those who drafted Section 3 of the 14th Amendment in the 1860s were very clear that they understood this provision to cover not only the former Confederacy, but that it would be a part of our Constitution forever in the future. It will stand as a shield for protection, and so it is not a dusty relic,” he said.
Noah Bookbinder, president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a nonprofit group that supported the legal challenge to Trump, pointed out that the Supreme Court did not overturn the fact-finding made by judges in Colorado that Trump was “insurrectionist.” “Involved in.
“Every court – or decision-making body – that has thoroughly examined this issue has determined that January 6 was an insurrection and that Donald Trump incited it,” Bookbinder said. “This is still true today.”
In remarks at his Mar a Lago resort on Monday, Trump accused President Biden — without offering any evidence — of weaponizing the Justice Department against him. The two men are likely to face each other in the presidential elections to be held in November.
“Fight your own battles,” Trump said. “Don’t use prosecutors and judges to go after your opponent.”
There is no evidence – none – that the White House is coordinating with prosecutors who are targeting Trump. Actually, the US Justice Department works independently from the White House.
NPR legal intern Alyssa Harwood contributed to this report.
