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In an emphatic ruling with far-reaching implications for the 2024 presidential election, the United States supreme court reversed a controversial Colorado ruling that removed former U.S. president Donald Trump‘s name from the ballot there.
Three months ago, Colorado’s supreme court ruled that Trump had allegedly engaged in insurrection on January 6, 2021 – a day of violent rioting at the U.S. Capitol – and was therefore ineligible to hold the office to which he aspires under section three of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
“The Constitution makes Congress, rather than the States, responsible for enforcing section three against federal officeholders and candidates,” all nine justices agreed in an unsigned opinion (.pdf). “The judgement of the Colorado supreme court is reversed.”
“This is a major slap down of Colorado’s Supreme Court,” one South Carolina attorney told us.
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The ruling shuts down attempts to boot Trump from the ballot in multiple states. Maine’s secretary of state likewise kicked Trump off of that state’s ballot – citing section three of the Fourteenth Amendment. A state judge in Chicago, Illinois issued a similar ruling related to ballots in next week’s Illinois presidential primary.
Trump hailed the ruling as “something that will be spoken about a hundred years from now, and two hundred years from now.”
“Essentially, you cannot take somebody out of a race because an opponent would like to have it that way,” Trump said. “It has nothing to do with the fact that it’s the leading candidate – whether it was the leading candidate or a candidate that was well down on the totem pole – you cannot take somebody out of a race.”
“The voters can take a person out of a race very quickly,” Trump added. “But a court shouldn’t be doing that and the supreme court saw that very well.”
While the decision was unanimous, one of Trump’s own appointees – justice Amy Coney Barrett – argued the court should have stopped at rejecting Colorado’s ruling and not engaged “the complicated question (of) whether federal legislation is the exclusive vehicle” for enforcing section three of the Fourteenth Amendment.
(Click to View)
According to her, such a ruling would have been “sufficient to resolve this case.”
Meanwhile, the court’s three liberal justices – Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Kentaji Brown Jackson – agreed with the judgment but argued the majority erred when it determined “disqualification for insurrection can occur only when congress enacts a particular kind of legislation.” They claimed this decision was intended to “insulate this court and (Trump) from future controversy.”
On several occasions in their concurring opinion, the three justices referred to the court taking extraordinary steps to limit how the Fourteenth Amendment “can bar an oathbreaking insurrectionist from becoming president.”
Barrett chided her liberal colleagues for their rhetoric.
“This is not the time to amplify disagreement with stridency,” she wrote. “The court has settled a politically charged issue in the volatile season of a presidential election. Particularly in this circumstance, writings on the court should turn the national temperature down, not up.”
“All nine justices agree on the outcome of this case,” Barrett added. “That is the message Americans should take home.”
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THE OPINION …
(U.S. Supreme Court)
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
J. Mark Powell is an award-winning former TV journalist, government communications veteran, and a political consultant. He is also an author and an avid Civil War enthusiast. Got a tip or a story idea for Mark? Email him at mark@fitsnews.com.
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4 comments
Uh oh, Dims need to do some more calculus since Lib AGs and state courts aren’t going to be able to do their dirty work…
Illegitimate supreme court stacked by GOP makes illegitimate decision about their illegitimate candidate.
“But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”
I understand that to say that Congress can REMOVE the disqualification (disability) by a two-thirds vote. It says nothing about Congress enforcing or upholding the disqualification.
I think it would have been a mess if they had approved it, but I think the SC has now just nullified section 3 by their explanation.
Deep State takin’ care of their own.