Supreme Court leans in favor of Trump’s bid to run again

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court justices gave a favorable hearing to former President Donald Trump on Thursday, suggesting they will clear the way for him to seek election this year despite the mob attack on the Capitol that followed his loss in 2020.

The justices, both conservative and liberal, said they were skeptical of giving individual states the constitutional authority to disqualify candidates for a national office like the presidency.

“Why should a single state make this determination for the rest of the nation?” asked Justice Elena Kagan. “It sounds awfully national.”

“It just doesn’t seem like a state call,” added Justice Amy

Coney Barrett.

In December, the Colorado Supreme Court became the first and so far only state or federal court to rule that Trump must be removed from the primary ballot because he is not qualified to hold office again.

By a 4-3 vote, the state judges said Trump had violated Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which says no person may “hold any office, civil or military” after having taken an oath to support the Constitution and later “engaged in insurrection” against the United States.

“We are here because, for the first time since the War of 1812, our nation’s Capitol came under violent assault. For the first time in history, the attack was incited by a sitting president of the United States to disrupt the peaceful transfer of presidential power,” said Denver attorney

Jason Murray, who represented the Colorado voters who sued to disqualify Trump.

But he quickly ran into steadily skeptical questions from the justices. They spent little time on whether Trump’s actions leading up to Jan. 6 amounted to engaging in an insurrection.

Instead, they took turns disputing the notion that state judges in Colorado or elsewhere may decide whether a presidential candidate is qualified.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said the 14th Amendment was adopted by the Reconstruction Congress to limit the authority of the states. “Wouldn’t that be the last place that you’d look for authorization for the states, including the Confederate states, to enforce the presidential election process?” he asked.

He predicted that if the high court were to endorse the Colorado ruling, other states “in very quick order” would make their own decisions on who can run for president, and some of them may seek to disqualify Democrats.

Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh repeatedly cited an 1869 decision holding that Congress had to pass a law to enforce the 14th Amendment’s disqualification rule. It was not up to each state, he said.

He also noted that while federal law makes it a crime to “incite an insurrection,” Trump had not been charged under that law.

The tenor of Thursday’s argument suggests a solid majority of the court, and perhaps all nine justices, will rule for Trump and reverse the Colorado court’s decision.

Only Justice

Sonia

Sotomayor, the court’s most reliable liberal, sounded as though she may vote against Trump.

The court with Roberts taking the lead is likely to turn out an opinion in a few weeks. March is the prime time for primary elections in much of the nation.

By next week, however, the justices will have before them another Trump appeal that could decide whether he goes on trial this spring for the Jan. 6 attack.

Last week, the D.C. circuit court rejected Trump’s claim that ex-presidents are immune from being prosecuted for their actions while in office. The appellate judges said they would keep the criminal case on hold until the Supreme Court decides whether to hear Trump’s appeal of that ruling.