Supreme Court Rules Trump to Stay on Ballot in Unanimous Ruling

The Supreme Court ruled that former President Donald Trump is eligible to run for office, overturning the Colorado Supreme Court decision that found him ineligible as a candidate and disqualified from the state ballot under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.

The order was issued on March 4, just a day before more than a dozen states hold their primary elections.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote a separate, concurring opinion that stressed the unanimity of the court.

“The Court has settled a politically charged issue in the volatile season of a Presidential election,” she wrote. “Particularly in this circumstance, writings on the Court should turn the national temperature down, not up. For present purposes, our differences are far less important than our unanimity: All nine Justices agree on the outcome of this case. That is the message Americans should take home.”

However, Justice Coney Barrett took issue with the part  of the order that opined on the role of federal legislation in enforcing Section 3.

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Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson likewise took issue with opining on federal legislation

They wrote another concurring order that even though all nine members agreed Colorado could not enforce Section 3, the three justices thought the opinion should have ended there.

“Although only an individual State’s action is at issue here, the majority opines on which federal actors can enforce Section 3, and how they must do so,” the opinion reads. “In doing so, the majority shuts the door on other potential means of federal enforcement. We cannot join an opinion that decides momentous and difficult issues unnecessarily, and we therefore concur only in the judgment.”

As of mid-February, Trump attorneys reported 88 challenges to President Trump’s eligibility in 45 states under the Civil War-era statute.

Besides the Colorado Supreme Court, the Maine secretary of state and an Illinois judge had also ruled President Trump ineligible after finding that he engaged in an alleged “insurrection” for his actions on Jan. 6, 2021. All three disqualifications had been stayed pending a higher court ruling, and no state has actually removed President Trump from any ballot to date.

Attorney Jason Murray, representing six Colorado voters, argued that Section 3 and Colorado state law together allowed the state to disqualify President Trump as a candidate and urged the Supreme Court to affirm Colorado’s findings for all states.

The opinion had been greatly anticipated by many lower courts that held off determining the dozens of ballot challenges filed across nearly every state. Almost half a hundred amicus briefs were filed by officials, lawmakers, legal experts, and voters in the days leading up to oral arguments.

Section 3 of the 14th Amendment was originally written to prevent deserters who left office to join the Confederacy from returning to their posts. It stipulated that those who had taken an oath of office and later engaged in “insurrection” or “rebellions” could not hold office without a two-thirds vote from Congress removing the disability.

Since Jan. 7, 2021, activists had promoted the legal theory that President Trump was disqualified under this statute, asking top election officials across the nation to bar him from future elections. After a Colorado court tried the case late last year and issued the first ruling regarding Jan. 6 and an “insurrection,” Section 3 rulings snowballed into other states.

Colorado Disqualification

The Colorado case was brought last summer, and under the state’s election code was meant to be heard immediately. However, a district court judge delayed the case about two months before holding a week-long trial.

Plaintiffs presented witness and expert testimony and a record based largely on the controversial Jan. 6 Select Committee report. The original defendant of the case was Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, who took no official position but later stated that she personally believed that President Trump engaged in “insurrection” and urged the Supreme Court to affirm his disqualification.

The trial court judge had not disqualified President Trump. Issuing a surprise ruling that determined President Trump had engaged in “insurrection,” the judge ruled that Section 3 did not apply to presidents and ordered the secretary of state to add him to the state’s primary ballot.

The plaintiffs and attorneys for President Trump appealed the case, and the Colorado Supreme Court affirmed the “insurrection” finding but reversed the lower court order, ordering the state secretary to remove him from the ballot if the case was not appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court by Jan. 5.

The Colorado GOP, an intervenor in the original case, appealed in short order and the removal was effectively stayed. President Trump appealed as well, and the Supreme Court opted to hear the simpler question his attorneys posed: whether the Colorado Supreme Court erred in its order to remove President Trump as a candidate.

This is a developing story and will be updated.