The United States Supreme Court handed Donald Trump a major victory yesterday, barring states from disqualifying candidates for federal office under a constitutional provision involving insurrection and reversing Colorado’s exclusion of him from its ballot.
The justices unanimously overturned a December 19, 2023 decision by Colorado’s top court to kick the former president off the state’s Tuesday Republican primary ballot after finding that the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment disqualified him from again holding public office. The Colorado court had found that Trump took part in an insurrection for inciting and supporting the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters.
But four of the nine justices, including the court’s three liberal members, faulted the rest of the court for announcing rules limiting how the constitutional provision may be enforced in the future. Trump is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic President Joe Biden in the Nov. 5, 2024 U.S. election. His only remaining rival for his party’s nomination is former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley. The ruling was issued on the eve of Super Tuesday, the day in the U.S. presidential primary cycle when the most states hold party nominating contests.
The Supreme Court’s decision came five days after it 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. Delays in deciding the immunity issue could help Trump by delaying his criminal trial.
The 14th Amendment’s Section 3 bars from office any “officer of the United States” who took an oath “to support the Constitution of the United States” and then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”
“We conclude that states may disqualify persons holding or attempting to hold state office. But states have no power under the Constitution to enforce Section 3 with respect to federal offices, especially the presidency,” the unsigned opinion for the court stated. The justices found that only Congress can enforce the provision against federal officeholders and candidates. “BIG WIN FOR AMERICA!!!,” Trump wrote on his social media platform immediately after the ruling.
Trump was also barred from the ballot in Maine and Illinois based on the 14th Amendment, but 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. “Colorado should be able to bar oath-breaking insurrections from our ballot,” she wrote in a social media post.
Though the justices unanimously agreed with the result, the three liberal justices, as well as conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett, said 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.