On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court gave Donald Trump a significant boost in his bid to win back the presidency by ruling against states’ ability to disqualify federal candidates based on a constitutional provision pertaining to insurrection and overturning a court ruling that had kept him off the Colorado ballot.
The justices unanimously overturned a Colorado Supreme Court ruling on December 19 that prohibited Trump from running for the state’s Republican primary on Tuesday, citing the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. 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.
In the U.S. election scheduled for November 5, Trump is the front-runner to face Democratic President Joe Biden for the Republican nomination. Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, is his lone competitor for the party’s candidacy.
The decision was made the night before Super Tuesday, the day in the American presidential primary cycle when the majority of states have primary elections for party nominations.
Following the decision, Trump exclaimed on social media, “HUGE WIN FOR AMERICA!!!”
Section 3 of the 14th Amendment prohibits any “officer of the United States” from holding public office if they have sworn “to support the Constitution of the United States” and subsequently “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”
“We draw the conclusion that states have the authority to disqualify candidates or incumbents for state office. However, the unsigned court judgment said that states are not allowed by the Constitution to enforce Section 3 with regard to federal posts, including the presidency.
The judges concluded that the clause can only be applied to federal officeholders and candidates by Congress.
“CHALLENGEROUS AND TROUBLE ISSUES”
Despite the fact that all three liberal justices and conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett concurred with the decision, they felt the court’s decision went beyond what was required to settle the issue.
Lean Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson said, “We cannot join an opinion that decides momentous and difficult issues unnecessarily, and we therefore concur only in the judgment.”
“In my opinion, now is not the moment to intensify acrimonious disagreement. In the turbulent period leading up to a presidential election, the court has resolved a contentious political matter. Writings about the court, especially in this situation, ought to lower rather than raise the public temperature, Barrett said.
“At this point, our disagreements are much less significant than our consensus: all nine Justices concur on the case’s verdict. “It is the lesson that Americans ought to remember,” Barrett continued.
Due to the 14th Amendment, Trump was also prohibited from running for office in Maine and Illinois; however, those rulings were postponed until after the Supreme Court’s decision in the Colorado case.
The Colorado ballot dispute was swiftly settled by the Supreme Court, in contrast to its more leisurely treatment of Trump’s request for immunity from criminal prosecution in a federal case involving allegations that he attempted to void his 2020 election defeat. A win for Trump as he runs against Biden is that his trial has been postponed while the Supreme Court makes its ruling.
Just two days after Trump filed his appeal, the court decided to take up the Colorado case. They expedited the proceedings and produced a written ruling in less than two months.
The justices in the immunity issue last week decided to hear the case after lower courts had rendered decisions, delaying the arguments until late April. Earlier in the month, they had rejected a request to expedite the settlement of the case before a lower court had had a chance to weigh in.
Six Colorado voters—four Republicans and two independents—challenged Trump’s eligibility in court, portraying him as a danger to American democracy and demanding that he answer for his supporters’ attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
A liberal watchdog organization in Washington called Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington supported the plaintiffs.
With litigation aimed at disqualifying Trump surfacing nationwide, it was critical for his campaign to overcome any obstacles in order to be included on ballots in all 50 states.
Three Trump appointees make up the conservative majority on the Supreme Court, which stands at 6-3. The court has never been so involved in a presidential election since it decided the historic Bush v. Gore case, which gave Republican George W. Bush the edge over Democrat Al Gore in the contentious 2000 U.S. election.
ATTACK ON CAPITOL
To stop Congress from accrediting Biden’s 2020 election win, Trump loyalists stormed the Capitol, fought law enforcement, and broke through barriers. Trump had earlier delivered a fiery speech to his supporters in which he reiterated his fabrications about massive voter fraud and exhorted them to march to the Capitol and “fight like hell.” Then, for hours, he ignored pleas for him to tell the mob to halt.
After the Civil War (1861–1865), which saw Southern states that had supported slavery secede from the Union and revolt against the federal government, the 14th Amendment was enacted.
Colorado’s highest court denied Trump’s request, citing the “general atmosphere of political violence that President Trump created” and his assistance in “the insurrectionists’ common unlawful purpose of preventing the peaceful transfer of power in this country.”
On February 8, the Supreme Court heard arguments. Trump’s legal team contended that the disqualification language does not apply to him because he is not a “officer of the United States,” that the provision cannot be enforced in court without legislation from Congress, and that the events of January 6th were violent, criminal, and dishonorable but not insurrectionary.