Supreme Court Rules on Trump’s Colorado Ballot: Decoding its Impact
Main Takeaway:
The US Supreme Court ruled that states do not have the power to haphazardly remove presidential candidates from the ballot.
Furthermore, the Court ruled that congress has the power to enact laws to enforce how unqualified candidates are treated. This ruling essentially guarantees that Trump won’t be removed from any other state ballot by election time.
And, the Court did not speak on whether or not Trump is an insurrectionist.
The case originated when a group of Colorado voters filed a petition against former President Trump in state court that sought to have Trump removed from the ballot.
They based their argument on section 3 of the 14th amendment which reads, in part that no person shall hold any office if they have “have engaged in insurrection or rebellion.”
The Colorado Supreme Court ruled in the petitioners favor and ordered that Trump be removed from the ballot, finding that he had in fact, fomented insurrection.
Read their opinion here
Trump’s Argument
Trump’s legal team argued that:
1. A fundamental principal of democracy is that the people should choose whom they please to govern them, i.e. state’s don’t have power to overstep federal boundaries by dictating who may be a candidate in a federal election.
2. The question of eligibility to serve as President of the United States is properly reserved for Congress. In Michigan and Minnesota where the exact same cases were brought to remove Trump from the ballot, both courts addressed the issue of political question doctrine and declined to rule in Trump’s favor.
The term “political question” expresses the principle that some issues are either entrusted solely to another branch of government or are beyond the competence of the Judiciary to review. Finding that a matter qualifies as a political question divests federal courts of jurisdiction, meaning they lack the power to rule on the matter and the Congress may, by law, provide for the case wherein neither a President elect nor a vice President elect shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice President shall have qualified.
In other words, some cases issues that are too elaborate for a courts consideration, and may be better decided by congress, or “the people.”
3. Section 3 of the 14th Amendment doesn’t apply to Trump, or to any president.
According to section 3 of the 14th amendment, the President is not “an officer of the United States,” as defined.
The Constitution consistently distinguishes “president” from “officers” of USA in other amendments, clearly intending the separation to emphasize that officers are lower ranking than presidents. Furthermore, historically, the distinguishment between “officer” and “president” has underwent different interpretations, many of which support the idea that the amendment doesn’t apply to presidents. (I’m kind of glossing over this because there’s a humongous history about the wording in that amendment and… this distinction wasn’t harped on in the Supreme Court decision.)
Additionally, Trump, never took the kind of oath referred to in section 3 of the 14th amendment.
But if you’re interested read below:
4. Trump did not commit insurrection
“Insurrection” as understood at the time of the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment meant the taking up of arms and waging war upon the United States, Trump’s legal team likened January 6th to a political protest, the kind of which has routinely occurred throughout the history of our country.
Supreme Court Ruling
The Supreme Court of the US acknowledged that section 3 was designed to prevent confederates from regaining power after the civil war.
More importantly, the court concluded that regardless of whether section 3 applies to Trump or not, Congress must enact laws to decide how section 3 is enforced, based on Section 5 of the 14th amendment, the “enforcement” clause (which gives Congress the task of enforcing the 14th amendment).
Everyone agreed, except for Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson, who agreed in part but took issue with the majority’s view that section 3 must be left to congress.
If true, then Trump and the many Trump affiliates who may run for office in this country, are guaranteed a spot on the ballots in every state because congress is not going to have the time to pass a law on how to enforce section 3 by election time.
Read opinion below: