Former US President and 2024 presidential hopeful Donald Trump speaks at a “Get Out the Vote” Rally in Conway, South Carolina, on February 10, 2024.
Julia Nikhinson | Afp | Getty Images
The Supreme Court on Monday unanimously reversed the Colorado court ruling that barred Donald Trump from appearing on the state’s Republican presidential primary ballot because of a provision in the U.S. Constitution related to people who engage in insurrection.
The Supreme Court’s ruling means that no other state can bar Trump, or any other candidate, from a presidential ballot by invoking the insurrection clause in the Constitution’s 14th Amendment.
The decision Monday said that “States have no power under the Constitution to” enforce the provision disqualifying people from federal office if they engaged in insurrection, “especially the Presidency.” The ruling did say that states could disqualify people from holding state offices on those grounds.
“For the reasons given, responsibility for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates rests with Congress and not the States,” the ruling said. “The judgment of the Colorado Supreme Court therefore cannot stand.”
Trump a Truth Social post reacting to the ruling wrote, “BIG WIN FOR AMERICA!!!”
The decision, which means votes he garners on Tuesday’s ballot will count for the former president, was not a surprise.
During oral arguments in the case on Feb. 8, many of the court’s nine justices appeared skeptical of the Colorado Supreme Court’s rationale and process for disqualifying Trump from the ballot.
“I think that the question that you have to confront is why a single state should decide who gets to be president of the United States,” Justice Elena Kagan, one of the court’s more progressive members, said during the hearing to a lawyer for the six Colorado voters who sought Trump’s disqualification.
After Colorado barred Trump from the ballot, two other states, Maine and Illinois, did the same.
But those decisions were…
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