(Washington) The Supreme Court on Monday reinstated Donald Trump’s presence on the 2024 presidential primary ballots, rejecting states’ attempts to hold the former Republican president responsible for the Capitol riot.
The justices ruled, a day before the Super Tuesday primaries, that states, without prior action by Congress, cannot invoke a post-Civil War constitutional provision to block presidential candidates from appearing on the ballot. the ballot papers.
The move ends efforts by Colorado, Illinois, Maine and other states to exclude Trump, his party’s nomination candidate, from the ballot because of his attempts to erase his election defeat. of 2020 against Democrat Joe Biden, the culmination of which was the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
The former president hailed a “great victory” for the United States on his Truth Social network.
SCREENSHOT
Mr. Trump’s case is the first to come before the Supreme Court under a provision of 14e amendment passed after the Civil War to prevent former officeholders who “engaged in insurrection” from holding office again.
The Colorado Supreme Court, in an unprecedented ruling, decided that this provision, Section 3, could apply to Mr. Trump, who, according to the Court, had incited the attack on the Capitol. No court had previously applied Section 3 to a presidential candidate.
Some election observers have warned that a move requiring congressional action to implement Section 3 could leave the door open for a new battle to try to use the provision to disqualify Mr. Trump in the event where he would win the election. In a first scenario, a Democratic-controlled Congress could attempt to reject the certification of Mr. Trump’s election on January 6, 2025, under this provision.
The issue could then come back before the Court, perhaps in the midst of a full-blown constitutional crisis.
Both sides had asked the Court to work quickly, as it heard the parties’ arguments less than a month ago, on February 8. The judges then seemed ready to rule in favor of Mr. Trump.
Mr. Trump had been excluded from the vote in Colorado, Maine and Illinois, but these three decisions had been put on hold pending the Supreme Court’s decision.
This case constitutes the Court’s most direct intervention in a presidential election since Bush v. Gore, a decision handed down a quarter of a century ago that gave the 2000 election to Republican George W. Bush.
It is one of several cases directly involving Mr. Trump or likely to affect his chances of becoming president again, including a case scheduled for oral arguments at the end of April that focuses on the question of to know if he can be criminally prosecuted for interference in the elections, in particular because of his role in the January 6 attack on the Capitol. The timing of the high court’s intervention has raised questions about whether Mr. Trump will be tried before the November election.
Oral arguments in February marked the first time the high court had heard a case involving Section 3. This two-sentence provision, intended to prevent some Confederates from holding office again, states that people who do not who do not respect their oath to support the Constitution cannot occupy various positions, notably in Congress or as electors for the presidential election. However, the law does not specifically mention the presidency.
Conservative and liberal justices questioned the arguments made against Mr. Trump. Their primary concern was whether Congress needed to act before states could invoke the 14e amendment. They also questioned whether the president was covered by this provision.
PHOTO EVELYN HOCKSTEIN, REUTERS
The United States Supreme Court in Washington
Lawyers for Republican and independent voters who sued to remove Mr. Trump’s name from the Colorado ballot argued that there was ample evidence that the events of January 6 constituted an insurrection and that they had were provoked by Mr. Trump, who had urged the crowd of his supporters, during a rally in front of the White House, to “fight like hell”. They felt it would be absurd to apply Section 3 to everything except the presidency or for Mr. Trump to be somehow exempt. Moreover, this provision does not require any enabling legislation, they argued.
Mr. Trump’s lawyers have presented several arguments as to why the amendment cannot be used to prevent him from participating in the vote. They argued that the Jan. 6 riot was not an insurrection and that, even if it was, Mr. Trump did not go to the Capitol or join the rioters. The amendment’s wording also excludes the presidency and presidential candidates, they said. Even if all of these arguments fail, Congress must pass legislation to reinvigorate Section 3.
The case was decided by a court that includes three judges appointed by Mr. Trump when he was president. They have reviewed numerous cases related to Mr. Trump in recent years, refusing to buy into his bogus claims of fraud in the 2020 election and refusing to protect tax records from Congress and New York prosecutors.