The Supreme Court unanimously restored Donald Trump to 2024 presidential primary ballots, rejecting state attempts to hold the Republican former president accountable for the Capitol riot. The justices ruled a day before the Super Tuesday primaries that states cannot invoke a post-Civil War constitutional provision to keep presidential candidates from appearing on ballots. That power resides with Congress, the court wrote in an unsigned opinion, reports the Associated Press. Trump posted on his social media network shortly after the decision was released: “BIG WIN FOR AMERICA!!!” The decision ends efforts in Colorado, Illinois, Maine and elsewhere to kick Trump, the front-runner for his party’s nomination, off the ballot because of his attempts to reverse his loss in the 2020 election to Joe Biden, culminating in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.
Trump’s case was the first at the Supreme Court dealing with 14th Amendment provision that was adopted after the Civil War to prevent former officeholders who “engaged in insurrection” from holding office again. 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 Trump in the event he wins the election. While all nine justices agreed that Trump should be on the ballot, there was sharp disagreement from the three liberal members of the court and a milder disagreement from conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett that their colleagues went too far in determining what Congress must do to disqualify someone from federal office. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson said they agreed that allowing the Colorado decision to stand could create a “chaotic state by state patchwork” but disagreed with the majority’s finding a disqualification for insurrection can only happen when Congress enacts legislation.
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