Former President Donald Trump will not be disqualified from Colorado’s presidential ballot under the 14th Amendment, the Supreme Court ruled Monday, killing critics’ legal efforts to disqualify Trump for being an “insurrectionist” as justices ruled states can’t unilaterally remove him from the ballot.
Former President Donald Trump speaks at a rally at the North Charleston Convention Center on ... [+]
The court issued a unanimous opinion reversing the Colorado ruling, writing “the Constitution makes Congress, rather than the States, responsible for enforcing [the 14th Amendment] against federal officeholders and candidates.”
Trump asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a Colorado Supreme Court ruling that disqualified him from the state’s ballot under section three of the 14th Amendment, which prohibits people from holding public office who have taken an oath of office and then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the [U.S.], or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”
Colorado was the first state to kick Trump off the ballot as lawsuits have proliferated across the country challenging his candidacy, with Maine and Illinois following, but the court’s ruling Monday kills those cases, as justices unilaterally found that states cannot remove federal candidates from the ballot.
Justices suggested at oral arguments in February they were likely to keep Trump on the ballot, with even liberal justices signaling they didn’t believe states had the power to disqualify Trump.
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“We conclude that States may disqualify persons holding or attempting to hold state office,” the court wrote. “But States have no power under the Constitution to enforce Section 3 with respect to federal offices, especially the Presidency.”
The 14th Amendment case is one of two Trump-related disputes the Supreme Court has been considering, as Trump also asked justices to pause his federal criminal case over trying to overturn the 2020 election as he appeals a ruling refusing to throw out the charges. Trump has argued he has “absolute immunity” from prosecution for acts he took while in office, though both district and appeals courts have ruled against him. The Supreme Court said in February it will take up Trump’s motion and hear oral arguments in April on whether former presidents are immune from criminal prosecution for “official acts” while they’re in office—keeping Trump’s trial on pause until the court rules.
- That’s the number of states where lawsuits were brought challenging Trump’s candidacy under the 14th Amendment, according to a tracker compiled by Lawfare.
Section three of the 14th Amendment dates back to after the Civil War and was initially a way to keep former Confederates from regaining power. After fading into obscurity in more recent decades, the statute gained attention in the wake of the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol building, as left-leaning groups including Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington—behind the Colorado suit—and Free Speech for People began using the section to target participants in that insurrection. Free Speech for People filed lawsuits against such candidates as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and former Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.)’s candidacies in the 2022 midterms, and while the challenge to Greene’s candidacy failed and Cawthorn’s case was mooted when the lawmaker lost his primary, a separate lawsuit against New Mexico commissioner Couy Griffin succeeded, making him the first official removed under the 14th Amendment since 1869. Critics have focused their attention on Trump in the leadup to the 2024 election, and the case for removing him gained steam after prominent conservative legal scholars endorsed the theory in 2023. Colorado’s ruling disqualifying Trump came after a string of courts in such states as Minnesota and Michigan ruled in Trump’s favor, though both legal experts and state officials had long expected the Supreme Court would ultimately decide the issue.