Soon after John Roberts took his seat at the center of the Supreme Court bench on Thursday, the cadence of the justices’ questioning suggested the chief justice would have an easy majority, if not unanimity, to reverse a Colorado ruling that blocked Donald Trump from the ballot.
Roberts had no need to engage in his own persuasive efforts from the bench, as often happens, to subtly begin corralling colleagues. They were with him.
A tone of political expediency and comity replaced the usual ideological divisions on this bench of six Republican-appointed conservatives and three Democratic liberals.
Still, now comes the hard part.
How quickly can the nine justices agree on some legal grounds and produce an opinion that ends the national uncertainty over whether states may bar Trump from ballots under a 14th Amendment section targeting insurrectionists?
Primary election contests are underway, and Super Tuesday is a month away.
Not since the 2000 case of Bush v. Gore has the Supreme Court been in the middle of an election battle of such potential magnitude. The courtroom was packed Thursday. Several of the justices’ spouses, including Jane Roberts, wife of the chief justice, sat in a special guest section. Lawyer Mark Paoletta, a close friend of Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife, Ginni, was also in the prime guest section.
Scores of reporters filled the usual press seats as well as overflow sections behind marble pillars. CNN and other news outlets carried the live-streamed audio of the arguments.
Any real possibility that the leading Republican presidential candidate would be kept off state ballots dissolved early in the hearing that ran slightly more than two hours. Roberts’ criticism of the Colorado Supreme Court…
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