Trump eligible for ballot: US Supreme Court
DENVER (AP) — Former President Donald Trump gained a clear win at the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday, which unanimously ruled that states don’t have the ability to bar him — or any other federal candidates — from the ballot under a rarely-used constitutional provision that prohibits those who “engaged in insurrection” from holding office.
The decision shuts down a push in dozens of states to end Trump’s candidacy through a clause in the 14th Amendment, written to prevent former Confederates from serving in government after the Civil War.
But it may open the door to further electoral uncertainty, exposing more state officials to disqualification under the provision and setting up a constitutional showdown should Trump win the election.
Facing four separate criminal trials, Trump’s legal peril may just be beginning. So is the Supreme Court’s role in that process.
The most significant thing the court did Monday was to overturn a Colorado Supreme Court ruling from December that Trump was not eligible to be president because he violated the insurrection clause, Section 3, of the 14th Amendment.
This will also stop efforts to kick him off the ballot in Illinois, Maine and other states. Had the Supreme Court let the Colorado ruling stand, it could have triggered a new wave of litigation that might have left Trump disqualified in many states.
The high court avoided addressing that politically contentious issue of whether Trump played a role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol that would have barred him from seeking office. The ruling is almost devoid of references to Jan. 6 or insurrection, and doesn’t address whether Trump committed such an act by sparking the attack on the Capitol.
Instead it focuses on the technical, procedural question of who gets to decide an election challenge under Section 3.
All nine justices agreed that is the purview of Congress. But a narrower majority of five went further, ruling it can only be done through legislation. That exposes significant splits underneath the unanimous majority, and points toward the greatest uncertainty the ruling creates.
One possible outcome that the case presented was the prospect of unelected judges disqualifying the man dominating who has already received hundreds of thousands of votes in the nominating process.
But another potential nightmare is that if Congress is the only entity that can determine whether a presidential hopeful is indeed disqualified for engaging in “insurrection,” that it makes that determination on Jan. 6, 2025, when required to certify a possible Trump victory in the presidential election.