On Monday, in a long-awaited decision, the Supreme Court of the United States struck down a decision by the Colorado Supreme Court that former President Donald Trump was not allowed to appear on the ballot for the state’s Republican presidential primary.
Colorado had been fighting to have Trump removed from the ballot paper, arguing that, under the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution, the former President had engaged in insurrection during the events of the January 6th, 2021 attack on the United States Capitol by supporters of the President who sought to prevent Congress from ratifying the results of the 2020 Presidential Election, which Trump lost. The move, which was brought by a number of advocacy groups in Colorado and which ultimately won the backing of Secretary of State Jana Griffin, argued that Trump should be banned from appearing on the ballot under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution. Following this, Maine and Illinois also introduced similar measures to bar Trump from the ballot.
However, after winning the ruling in the Colorado Supreme Court, Trump’s team appealed, and the case went to the United States Supreme Court; on Monday the nine justices unanimously ruled that the Colorado did not have the authority to ban a candidate from appearing on the ballot paper for a federal election. However, deeper in the case there was less agreement, with the Court ruling 5-4 that only Congress held that power (with Justices Elena Kagan, Sonya Sotomayor, Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson stopping short of agreeing with that detail). Therefore, Donald Trump will be allowed to appear on the ballot in Colorado. Following this ruling, Maine and Illinois also withdrew their measures to block Trump from the ballot in those states.
So the Supreme Court ruled that Colorado could not use the 14th Amendment to block Trump from the ballot. But what exactly does the 14th Amendment say? The text of the section in question – Section 3 – reads:
“No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”
In bringing its case against Trump, Colorado faced two key stumbling blocks: first – as some of the justices highlighted – there is the question as to whether a state can block something determined at the federal level. It is quite possible, however, that if Trump had been running for office within the state, such as Governor, that Colorado could have blocked him from the ballot. Secondly, there is the question of whether Trump “engaged in insurrection“; any opinions of his actions leading up to January 6th aside, as it currently stands, Trump has not actually been convicted on any insurrection or rebellion charges, and ultimately is unlikely to be. Therefore, one cannot really lay a penalty on somebody for a charge they have not been convicted of.
But was overturning the ruling of the Colorado Supreme Court the right decision? In this writer’s opinion, yes: I do not believe it would be the place for any state to cast a decision which could ultimately impact the rest of the United States. Just as the federal government cannot rule on a matter reserved for the state level, neither should a state be able to make a ruling on a federal matter. Besides, there is the worse issue of the precedent this might set: as with the issue of court packing, removing Trump from the ballot would likely be a slippery slope, as the doors would be open in the future for states to bar any candidate they wished from the ballot for any reason they saw fit. We can only imagine, for example, if states had been allowed to block Barack Obama from the ballot in 2008 over the ludicrous “birther” conspiracy theories (of which, it must be said, Trump was a high-profile proponent). Therein, I would argue, lies a greater and graver threat to democracy.
Three years on from the events of January 6th, 2021, my opinions on Donald Trump’s role in stoking the violence on the United States Capitol have not changed. Furthermore, this ruling, in spite of some media interpretations, certainly does not exonerate Trump for any role he had in the events of January 6th. However, it certainly seems as if the final ruling on Trump will take place not in the court by judges, but at the ballot box: it will be for voters, rather than courts, to decide if Donald Trump is indeed fit to hold the office of President of the United States again.
And with that said, tomorrow is Super Tuesday. And if current polling is anything to be believed, there is a very real chance that voters could indeed return Donald Trump to the White House.
Hugh Evans 