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The Supreme Court has ruled that Trump will remain on Colorado’s primary ballot and ballots nationwide after the state and others attempted to remove him.
The Colorado Supreme Court had decided that Trump should be barred from the ballot under a constitutional clause that prevents officials who engaged in insurrection from holding public office.
Justices appeared to support reversing Colorado’s ruling during arguments in February.
“Because the Constitution makes Congress, rather than the states, responsible for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates, we reverse,” Monday’s ruling stated.
All nine justices said they agreed that Colorado or any state may not disqualify a presidential candidate based on the 14th Amendment. But, in separate opinions from the majority, three who were appointed by Democratic presidents and Trump-appointee Justice Amy Coney Barrett disagreed with the broader sweep the five other justices took in the decision.
Four justices took issue with the majority saying Congress must pass legislation on the process for disqualification under Section 3.
“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,” wrote Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan. “Because we would decide only the issue before us, we concur only in judgement.”
“In my judgement, this is not the time to amplify disagreement with stridency,” Barrett wrote. “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.”
The justices ruled in less than a month and just in time for his votes to be counted in Colorado’s primary election on Tuesday.
