On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court gave Donald Trump a significant win by overturning Colorado’s decision to remove him from the ballot and prohibiting states from using a constitutional provision pertaining to insurrection to disqualify candidates for federal office. The justices unanimously reversed the Colorado Supreme Court’s Dec. 19 ruling that barred the former president from the state’s Tuesday GOP primary, concluding that the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution barred him from ever holding public office again. The Colorado Court concluded that Trump engaged in insurrection by encouraging and endorsing his followers’ attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
The judges concluded that the constitutional ban prohibiting federal officeholders and candidates can only be enforced by Congress. But, three liberal justices on the court, along with four other justices, criticized the remainder of the court for setting restrictions that would restrict how the clause may be applied going forward.
In the U.S. election scheduled for November 5, Trump is the front-runner to face Democratic President Joe Biden for the GOP nomination. Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, is his lone competitor for the party’s candidacy.
On the eve of Super Tuesday, the day when the majority of states hold party nomination contests for the US presidential primary, the decision was made.
The US Supreme Court has ruled that states cannot enforce Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which bars any “officer of the United States” who took an oath to support the Constitution and then engaged in insurrection or rebellion against it. The ruling came five days after the justices agreed to decide Trump’s claim of immunity from prosecution on charges related to trying to overturn his 2020 election loss to Biden. The court acted in a speedier manner in deciding the ballot disqualification issue, benefiting Trump, than it has in resolving the immunity question. Trump welcomed the ruling, saying he hoped the decision would help unify the country but lambasted political opponents and prosecutors behind four criminal cases against him.
Trump was also barred from the ballot in Maine and Illinois based on the 14th Amendment. Those decisions were put on hold pending the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Colorado case. Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold expressed disappointment at the ruling “stripping states of the authority” to enforce the disqualification clause.
The court’s opinion decided more than what was necessary to resolve the case by specifying that Section 3 can be enforced only through federal legislation. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson objected to the majority’s “gratuitous” decision to announce rules limiting the way Section 3 can be enforced in the future.
(Reuters)
