WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday handed a sweeping win to former President Donald Trump by ruling states cannot kick him off the ballot over his actions leading up to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol — bringing a swift end to a case with huge implications for the 2024 election.
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The court said the Colorado Supreme Court had wrongly assumed that states can determine whether a presidential candidate or other candidate for federal office is ineligible.
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The 14th Amendment to the Constitution has a provision in Section 3 which bars previous holders of a government positions from running again if they engage in insurrectionist activities after office. The State of Colorado said “yes, Trump incited an insurrection on January 6th” and kicked him off the ballot so he could not run for President again.
However, Colorado doesn’t have that right. Colorado can bar Trump from running for state offices, but the office of the President is a federal position. Only Congress can make a ruling to apply the 14th Amendment to a potential candidate and their ruling would apply to all 50 states. In short, individual states cannot prevent candidates from appearing on ballots for national offices. Those are all or nothing.
I don’t like the Trump ruling anymore than the next respectable person (and yes, respectable person only refers to non-Republicans), but that’s how checks and balances are supposed to work. A state did something the Constitution says they cannot do, and the Supreme Court ruled accordingly. Technically, it’s a win for American Democracy because everything worked as intended. Unfortunately things never seem to work as intended when the rights and autonomy of marginalized classes are up for grabs, but that’s a different discussion…
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