One day before the decisive primary date of Super Tuesday, the United States Supreme Court has ruled unanimously that Donald Trump can run for office, overturning the decision of the highest state court of Colorado, which had prohibited him for his role in the assault on the Capitol. The Supreme Court declares this prohibition unconstitutional, considering that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which deprives an insurrectionist of being president, cannot be applied by a state court.
In this way, Trump will be able to appear on the ballots this Tuesday in Colorado, one of the 17 states and territories that will elect tomorrow a third of the delegates to the Republican and Democratic conventions, which will nominate each party’s candidates for office in the summer. the White House.
The nine justices of the High Court, including the three progressive judges, expressed during the initial arguments their doubts about the possibility of a state deciding on the eligibility of a candidate for the presidential elections, and this Monday they confirmed them in their writing: ” Because the Constitution makes Congress, and not the States, responsible for enforcing Section 3 of the 14th Amendment against federal officeholders and candidates, the Colorado Supreme Court was wrong to order that former President Trump be excluded of the 2024 presidential primary ballot.”
The justices have recognized the “chaotic” situation that would have caused a candidate to be eligible in some states and not in others based on the decisions of their courts. “Nothing in the Constitution requires us to endure such chaos until and perhaps beyond the inauguration,” reads the 13-page text published this Monday.
The Supreme Court’s ruling also extends to other similar lawsuits initiated in thirty states, in two of which (Maine and Illinois) it had been ruled, as in Colorado, that Trump could not participate in their primaries. The magnate thus manages to avoid a historic disqualification and gains momentum ahead of Super Tuesday, where he foresees a resounding victory against his only standing rival, Nikki Haley.
Trump tried to alter the result of the 2020 presidential election and encouraged his followers to go to the Capitol to prevent the certification of Joe Biden on January 6, 2021, in the largest attack on American democracy since the Civil War. The Colorado Supreme Court ruled in December that this was an insurrection and prohibited the magnate from running again in that state. Trump’s defense appealed the sentence and the Supreme Court accepted the case, which began on February 8 with opening arguments.
The debate has revolved around the text of the so-called “insurrection clause,” which prohibits a “congressman or official” who “has sworn an oath to the Constitution” and then “participated in an insurrection” from being president of the United States. It was ratified in 1868, after the Civil War, to prevent Confederate leaders from coming to power in Washington after their rebellion against the federal government.
Due to the proximity of the primaries in Colorado and Maine (this Tuesday), and those in Illinois (on March 19), the High Court has been forced to make this decision more quickly than usual. Its haste has been noted in the way it made public the ruling, issued through its website on a day when the court did not have a scheduled session.
And, although the judges have stated in writing their differences regarding whether Trump’s actions constituted an insurrection, they have all voted to reject the Colorado ruling as unconstitutional.
Trump has celebrated the decision in a post on his platform, Truth Social, calling it a “huge victory for America.” An hour later, he gave a speech from his private Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, where he congratulated the judges on their “very well-crafted” ruling that “will go a long way toward uniting our country”. “Frankly, they worked very quickly on something that will be talked about a hundred and two hundred years from now.”
For her part, Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold said in a statement that she is “disappointed” that this decision “strips states of the authority to enforce Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.” In the American federation, the states have great power over electoral rules and can disqualify candidates based on state laws and the Constitution, but the Supreme Court decided this Monday to limit this power due to its unprecedented impact on American democracy. .
This is not the only case related to Trump on the Supreme Court’s table. Last week, the magistrates gave him a break with their decision to accept the case of his indictment in Washington, where he is accused of conspiracy for trying to prevent the certification of the 2020 election results. Trump filed an appeal before the Supreme Court alleging that He should not be tried for events that took place while he was still president, which he argues grants him immunity.
With that decision, the tycoon bought time. The court set the initial arguments of both parties for April 22, so the resolution is expected to come within a few weeks, in June. Until then, the trial will be suspended and, if the Supreme Court finally agrees with Trump, it will be annulled.
In parallel to this accusation in Washington, the Republican has three other criminal trials pending in New York, Florida and Georgia, which he is also managing to delay with different legal tools. However, on March 25 he will face the first of these trials in New York, where he is accused of document falsification in his bribe to porn actress Stormy Daniels, whose silence he bought in the middle of the 2016 election campaign to hide an extramarital relationship that they had maintained ten years ago.
This Monday’s ruling clears up the question of whether Trump’s ballots can be in the elections. No provision of the Constitution prohibits an accused, convicted or imprisoned person from running for office, so the only option to disqualify him was a favorable ruling from the Supreme Court under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. With its unanimous decision, the Supreme Court reaffirms Trump’s eligibility for November 5.
