With the decision on Monday that states cannot bar former President Donald Trump from running for office due to his actions before to the January 6 attack on the Capitol, the US Supreme Court granted the former president an overwhelming victory. This decision quickly concluded a case that would have major implications for the 2024 election.
The court overturned the Colorado Supreme Court's decision, which had held that Trump was not eligible to run for president again under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, in an unsigned decision that received no dissent.
It is against the law for anyone who had government jobs before they "engaged in insurrection" to seek for office in different positions.
The Colorado Supreme Court, according to the court, wrongly assumed that states had the authority to decide whether a candidate for president or any federal office is ineligible.
The decision establishes that Congress, not the states, must establish guidelines for the application of the 14th Amendment's restriction preventing applicants for government positions. As a result, not just Colorado but all states are covered by the ruling. Under Section 3, states are still able to prevent candidates for state office from being listed on the ballot.
We reverse because the Constitution grants responsibility for enforcing section 3 against all federal officeholders and candidates to Congress rather than the states," the court's decision stated.
The court avoided analysing or determining whether Trump's acts constituted an insurrection by resolving the case on that legal point.
Only one day before the Colorado primary, the choice is made.
Trump celebrated a decision minutes after it was done, saying, "Big win for America!!!" in an all-capitals post on his social media platform.
Not only will the ruling guarantee Trump's inclusion on the Colorado ballot, but it will also put a halt to challenges of this kind. Only Maine and Illinois have so far adopted similar policies to Colorado. Both of those rulings, like the Colorado ruling, were placed on hold.
Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold acknowledged gratitude of the court's decision in a statement, saying, "Section 3 of the 14th Amendment is not subject to state enforcement for federal candidates." This ruling makes Donald Trump a viable contender in the Colorado 2024 presidential primary.
With the Supreme Court ruling, there is now no way to hold Trump responsible for his part in contesting the results of the 2020 election, including his call for supporters to stage a protest on January 6 in the Capitol, just as Congress was preparing to formally declare Joe Biden the winner.
For the same actions, Trump is charged criminally. He will present oral arguments on his sweeping claim of presidential immunity before the Supreme Court in April.
The decision spoke of the danger of a confused set of decisions across the nation that could destabilise elections if state authorities were allowed to freely choose who could be included on the presidential vote.
According to the decision, it is possible that a particular candidate may be ruled disqualified in certain states but not in others due to their actions.
To prevent a shutdown this weekend, Congress is waiting to vote on a significant government funding package.
There were disagreements about the case's outcome among the court's conservative majority of 6-3, despite the majority vote being unanimous.
In a jointly written concurring opinion, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, the three liberal justices, voiced dissatisfaction about the court's decision to determine how Congress may implement Section 3 and said that it had decided more than was necessary.
According to them, the court "shuts the door on other potential means of federal enforcement" of section 3 and could "insulate" Trump from "future controversy."
Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a conservative, disagreed with the liberal justices' opinion but acknowledged that the court went beyond what was necessary.
Barrett asserted that despite her small issues with the logic, liberals shouldn't "amplify disagreement" in a case with such strong implications for politics.
"The decision in this case is clear among the nine justices. The lesson that Americans need to remember is that, she said.
Section 3, which was passed following the Civil War to keep former Confederates from taking control of the US government, served as the foundation for the Colorado court's decision on December 19.
The case brings up several of novel legal questions, such as whether presidential candidates are bound by the phrase and who has the authority to determine if someone committed an insurrection.
The state supreme court's decision overturned a previous court's finding, which stated that although Trump had incited the violence on January 6, presidents are immune from the 14th Amendment's insurrection clause since they are not an
officer of the US government.
Along with other factors that the 14th Amendment cannot be applied, Trump and those who support him bring up this point. Furthermore, they maintained that January 6th was not an uprising.
Republicans, including Trump's major rivals, mostly agreed with his claim that any effort to remove him from the ballot is an instance of partisan election meddling. Several Democrats, including as California Governor Gavin Newsom, have also voiced concern about the 14th Amendment's potential partisanship.
The left-leaning government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, along with two legal firms, filed the initial case on behalf of six voters in Colorado.
In court documents, they claimed, Trump "desperately attempted to stop the counting of electoral votes cast against him by intentionally organising and inciting a violent mob to attack the United States Capitol."
Tuesday is the primary election in over a dozen states, including Colorado.
