The Supreme Court Looks Ready To Put Donald Trump Back On The Ballot
HuffPost
Most of the justices seemed dubious of a single state’s claim it could remove a federal candidate from the ballot.
The U.S. Supreme Court was nearly unanimous Thursday in its skepticism of the argument that the Constitution allows a state to remove a presidential candidate from its ballot after the Colorado Supreme Court decided to take former President Donald Trump’s name off its ballot for engaging in insurrection.
Trump’s ballot access came before the court in the case of Trump v. Anderson after nine voters in Colorado challenged his qualifications for office under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which forbids people who have previously taken an oath of office to uphold the Constitution and then engaged in insurrection from holding office in the future. The Colorado Supreme Court ruled on Dec. 19 that Trump was constitutionally ineligible due to his actions after the 2020 election and up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and ordered him removed from the ballot.
The Supreme Court’s skepticism came from all sides, with the six conservative justices and three liberals raising different points against it. But ultimately the justices appeared to coalesce around an argument that Section 3 does not give individual states the power to remove candidates for federal office without Congress passing legislation to authorize it.
“The whole point of the 14th Amendment was to restrict state power,” Chief Justice John Roberts said, adding, “Wouldn’t that be the last place you’d look for authorization for the states, including the Confederate states, to enforce … the presidential election process? That seems to be a position at war with the whole thrust of the 14th Amendment and very ahistorical.”
Jonathan Mitchell, the lawyer representing Trump, argued that the former president should be put back on the ballot because the office of the president was not specifically included in Section 3′s list of which candidates could be disqualified; that the section required congressional authorization; and that Trump did not engage in insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021.
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