Supreme Court restores Donald Trump to 2024 US presidential primary ballots

The US Supreme Court has restored Donald Trump to 2024 presidential primary ballots, rejecting state attempts to hold the Republican former president accountable for the Capitol riot.

A day before today’s Super Tuesday primaries, the justices ruled that states, without action from congress first, can not invokea post-civil war constitutional provision to keep presidential candidates from appearing on ballots.

The outcome ends efforts in Colorado, Illinois, Maine and elsewhere to kick Mr Trump, the front-runner for his party’s nomination, off the ballot because of his attempts to undo his loss in the 2020 election to Democrat Joe bid en, culminating in the attack on the Capitol on January 6 2021.

Mr Trump’s case was the first at the Supreme Court dealing with a provision of the 14th Amendment that was adopted after the Civil War to prevent former officeholders who “engaged in insurrection” from holding office again. Colorado’s Supreme Court, in a first-ofits-kind ruling, had decided that the provision, Section 3, could be applied to Mr Trump, who that court found incited the Capitol attack. No court before had applied section 3 to a presidential candidate.

Some election observers have warned that a ruling requiring congressional action to implement Section 3 could leave the door open to a renewed fight over trying to use the provision to disqualify Mr Trump in the event he wins the election.

In one scenario, a Democratic-controlled Congress could try to reject certifying Mr Trump’s election on January 6 2025 under the clause.

The issue then could return to the court, possibly in the midst of a full-blown constitutional crisis.

Both sides had requested fast work by the court, which heard arguments less than a month ago, on February 8. The justices seemed poised then to rule in Mr Trump’s favour.

Mr Trump had been kicked off the ballots in Colorado, Maine and Illinois, but all three rulings were on hold awaiting the Supreme Court’s decision.

The case is the court’s most direct involvement in a presidential election since Bush v Gore, a decision that effectively handed the 2000 election to Republican George W Bush.