SCOTUS Unanimously Rules That States Cannot Disqualify Trump from the Ballot

The United States Supreme Court unanimously ruled Monday that former President Donald Trump must be allowed to appear on the ballot in Colorado, as states do not have the authority to disqualify candidates for federal office under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.

Enacted in the wake of the Civil War in an effort to prevent former Confederates from gaining power, this provision 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.

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All nine Justices agreed that states cannot enforce Section 3 against candidates seeking federal office, “especially the Presidency.”

According to the majority opinion — signed by Chief Justice John Roberts, as well as Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh — Section 3 can only be enforced against federal candidates if Congress adopts enacting legislation pursuant to Section 5 of the same amendment.

“Because federal officers ‘owe their existence and functions to the united voice of the whole, not of a portion, of the people,’ powers over their election and qualifications must be specifically ‘delegated to, rather than reserved by, the States,'” the Justices stated. “But nothing in the Constitution delegates to the States any power to enforce Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates.”

These Justices also noted that those challenging former President Trump’s eligibility were unable to show any “historical precedent” of states barring federal candidates under this provision, which they suggest “is generally a ‘telling indication’ of a ‘severe constitutional problem’ with the asserted power.”

“Instead, it is Congress that has long given effect to Section 3 with respect to would-be or existing federal office-holders,” the Justice wrote.

Additionally, the Justices underscored concerns over the “patchwork” that would “likely result from state enforcement,” suggesting that it would “‘sever the direct link that the Framers found so critical between the National Government and the people of the United States’ as a whole.”

“Conflicting state outcomes concerning the same candidate could result not just from differing views of the merits, but from variations in state law governing the proceedings
that are necessary to make Section 3 disqualification determinations,” wrote the Justices. “The result could well be that a single candidate would be declared ineligible in some States, but not others, based on the same conduct (and perhaps even the same factual record).”

Several Justices offered concurring opinions in which they definitively agreed with the majority’s conclusion, but took issue with their decision to rule that the federal government could only enforce Section 3 through congressional legislation.

The majority addressed this in their opinion, writing: “The judgment of the Colorado Supreme Court therefore cannot stand. All nine Members of the Court agree with that result. Our colleagues writing separately further agree with many of the reasons this opinion provides for reaching it.”

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson — alongside Justice Amy Coney Barrett in a separate concurring opinion — suggested that the Court should not have decided anything beyond the fact that states do not have the power to enforce Section 3 against candidates for federal office.

“To allow Colorado to take a presidential candidate off the ballot under Section 3 would imperil the Framers’ vision of ‘a Federal Government directly responsible to the
people,'” wrote Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson in their concurring opinion. “The Court should have started and ended its opinion with this conclusion.”

“Allowing Colorado to do so would, we agree, create a chaotic state-by-state patchwork,
at odds with our Nation’s federalism principles,” they said. “That is enough to resolve this case. Yet the majority goes further.”

These Justice go on to suggest that the majority opinion “insulate[s] this Court and [Trump] from future controversy.”

“The majority announces that a disqualification for insurrection can occur only when Congress enacts a particular kind of legislation pursuant to Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment,” they wrote. “In doing so, the majority shuts the door on other potential means of federal enforcement.”

“Although we agree that Colorado cannot enforce Section 3, we protest the majority’s effort to use this case to define the limits of federal enforcement of that provision,” the Justices said. “Because we would decide only the issue before us, we concur only in the judgment.”

“I agree that States lack the power to enforce Section 3 against Presidential candidates,” wrote Justice Barrett in her concurring opinion. “That principle is sufficient to resolve this case, and I would decide no more than that.”

“This suit was brought by Colorado voters under state law in state court,” she said. “It does not require us to address the complicated question whether federal legislation is the exclusive vehicle through which Section 3 can be enforced.”

“For present purposes, our differences are far less important than our unanimity: All nine Justices agree on the outcome of this case,” Barrett concluded. “That is the message Americans should take home.”