Supreme Court Divided on Key Issue in Trump Ballot Case Despite Unanimous Ruling

As the Supreme Court unanimously agreed to overturn the Colorado Supreme Court ruling that blocked former President Donald Trump from access to the ballot, a 5–4 majority concurrently ruled that states do not have the power to enforce the 14th Amendment’s ban on federal candidates who engaged in an “insurrection or rebellion.”

But the four dissenting justices wrote that they believed the decision had gone too far and criticized their fellow justices over the matter. All nine justices agreed that Colorado cannot remove the former president from its ballots.

Chief Justice John Roberts as well as Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, Samuel Alito, and Clarence Thomas, who were nominated by Republican presidents, affirmed that states can’t remove a federal officer from ballots under the 14th Amendment, and especially the president. They wrote that in order to do so, Congress must first pass legislation.

“We conclude that States may disqualify persons holding or attempting to hold state office. But States have no power under the Constitution to enforce Section 3 with respect to federal offices, especially the Presidency,” the majority said. “Nothing in the Constitution delegates to the States any power to enforce Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates.”

But four justices wrote that they disagreed with that assertion, claiming it’s too broad and leaves little wiggle room for future applications of the 14th Amendment.

The Colorado Supreme Court had cited that portion of the amendment to rationalize booting President Trump from the ballot in December. A majority of its justices wrote that he engaged in an insurrection because of his actions on and before Jan. 6, 2021, when the U.S. Capitol building was breached.

The former president was also barred from the ballot in Maine and Illinois based on the 14th Amendment. Those decisions were put on hold pending the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Colorado case.

Division Emerges

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson—nominated by Democrat presidents—wrote that the majority ruling would close “the door on other potential means of federal enforcement” and that “we cannot join an opinion that decides momentous and difficult issues unnecessarily.”

“Although we agree that Colorado cannot enforce Section 3, we protest the majority’s effort to use this case to define the limits of federal enforcement of that provision,” they wrote on the insurrection clause, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.

They added that “we would decide only the issue before us,” and “we concur only in the judgment.”

Writing alone, Justice Amy Coney Barrett didn’t agree with the majority’s decision on that aspect of the case and did not concur with the three dissenting justices. Instead, she argued that the Trump ballot case doesn’t require the justices “to address the complicated question whether federal legislation is the exclusive vehicle through which Section 3 can be enforced.”

“This suit was brought by Colorado voters under state law in state court. It does not require us to address the complicated question [of] whether federal legislation is the exclusive vehicle through which Section 3 can be enforced,” Justice Barrett wrote.

Later, she argued that “the majority’s choice of a different path leaves the remaining Justices with a choice of how to respond” and that “the Court has settled a politically charged issue in the volatile season of a Presidential election.”

“Particularly in this circumstance, writings on the Court should turn the national temperature down, not up,” she continued.

President Trump is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination to challenge President Joe Biden in the Nov. 5 presidential election. His only remaining rival for his party’s nomination is former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley.

The ruling was issued on the eve of Super Tuesday, the day in the U.S. presidential primary cycle when most states hold party nominating contests. Other than Washington, D.C., the former president has won every previous state, gaining a significant number of delegates to clinch the Republican Party’s nomination.

Notably, Colorado and Maine are scheduled to hold their primary elections on Super Tuesday.

His eligibility had been challenged in court by a group of six voters in Colorado who portrayed him as a threat to American democracy and sought to hold him accountable for the Jan. 6, 2021, breach. Over the past three years, President Trump has frequently noted that he told supporters and would-be protesters before the breach to demonstrate “peacefully and patriotically.”

The former president welcomed the ruling, saying during an appearance in Florida: “Essentially, you cannot take somebody out of a race because an opponent would like to have it that way.”

“They worked long, they worked hard and frankly, they worked very quickly on something that will be spoken about 100 years from now and 200 years from now, extremely important,” he said Monday, referring to the justices.

Going further, he said he hoped the decision would help unify the country. “I think it will go a long way toward bringing our country together, which our country needs,” the former president stated.

Reuters contributed to this report.