A day before the decisive date of the primaries of the s , the Supreme Court of the United States ruled yesterday unanimously that Donald Trump can run in the elections, thus overturning the decision of the highest state court in Colorado, which he had banned it because of the role it played in the storming of the Capitol. The Supreme Court declared this ban unconstitutional, after holding that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which deprives an insurgent of being president, cannot be applied by a state court.
In this way, Trump’s name will appear on Tuesday’s ballot in Colorado, one of 17 states and territories that will today elect a third of the delegates to the Republican and Democratic conventions, which will nominate each party’s candidates in the summer in the White House. If, as the polls predict, his only rival, Nikki Haley, wins with authority in every state, and Joe Biden does the same in the Democratic primaries, the two will pave the way for their direct showdown in the presidential election on November 5 .
Before Super Tuesday, the nine magistrates of the High Court, including the three progressive judges, indicated in their decision the unconstitutionality of a state deciding that a candidate cannot stand in the elections: “The Constitution makes Congress , and not the states, responsible for enforcing Section 3 of the 14th Amendment against federal office holders and candidates,” so that “the Colorado Supreme Court erred in ordering former President Trump to be disbarred from the primary ballot”.
The nine judges recognized the “chaotic” situation that would have caused Trump to be eligible in some states and not in others based on state decisions. “Nothing in the Constitution requires us to endure this chaos until the inauguration”, reads the letter that was published yesterday.
The Supreme Court’s decision also extends to other similar litigations that have begun in around thirty states. In two of these states, Maine and Illinois, it had been ruled, as in Colorado, that Trump could not run in the primaries. The tycoon manages to avoid a historic disqualification and gains momentum in the run-up to the decisive Super Tuesday, because almost three times as many Republican delegates (874) will be elected as those distributed so far (301).
Trump tried to alter the outcome of the 2020 presidential election and encouraged his supporters to go to the Capitol to block Biden’s certification on January 6, 2021. The Colorado Supreme Court ruled in December that it was an insurrection and banned him from standing for election in that state. Trump’s defense filed an appeal and the Supreme Court accepted the case, which began on February 8.
The debate has revolved around the “insurrection clause”, which prohibits a “congressman or official” who has “sworn to the Constitution” and then “participated in an insurrection” from being president of the USA. It was ratified in 1868, after the Civil War, to prevent Confederate leaders from gaining power in Washington.
Due to the proximity of the primaries in Colorado and Maine today, and those in Illinois on March 19, the High Court was forced to make this decision more quickly. The haste was noticeable in the way the decision was issued, through the web on a day when there was no scheduled session. Trump celebrated the decision at Truth Social, calling it a “great victory for America.” An hour later, he made a speech from his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, where he congratulated the judges on a decision that “will go a long way toward uniting the country” and that ” will speak one hundred and two hundred years from now”.
At the same time, Trump faces four criminal trials, which could come before the election: in New York, Washington, Florida and Georgia. The one in Washington, to try to reverse the 2020 elections, is on hold pending the Supreme Court deciding whether it has immunity. Last week, he set initial pleas for April 22, so the ruling could come in June. In this way, he gave a break to the former president, who uses all the tools at his disposal to delay the processes until after November. But on March 25 he will face his first trial, in New York, where he is accused of forgery in the bribery of actress Stormy Daniels in 2016.
Monday’s decision clarifies the unknown of whether Donald Trump’s ballots can be in the elections. No provision of the Constitution prohibits an indicted, convicted or imprisoned person from standing for election, so the only option to disqualify him was a Supreme Court ruling under the 14th Amendment. With the unanimous decision, it reaffirms Trump’s eligibility for November 5.
