The Supreme Court has rejected efforts to remove Donald Trump from Colorado’s primary ballot
The U.S. Supreme Court was very cautious Thursday in its attempt to remove former President Donald Trump from Colorado’s primary election ballot due to “insurrection”, which is related to the 2020 election interference culminating with the riots on January 6, 2019.
The court is examining for the first time the meaning and scope of a 14th Amendment provision that prohibits former public officials who “engaged” in insurrection from holding office again.
The justices asked both sides, in more than two hours, of often heated arguments, if the presidential candidate or president was exempted from the constitutional provision that was adopted after the Civil War.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh said that he spoke for his colleagues when he said they faced “difficult” questions.
Most of the questions centered on whether or not state courts and elected officials could unilaterally enforce constitutional provisions to declare candidates ineligible for office – a so-called “self-executing authority” – or if that was exclusively the jurisdiction of the U.S. Congress. Chief Justice John Roberts warned that disqualification procedures from the “other side” could have “pretty serious consequences” for Democratic candidates.
He said: “I’d expect several states to say that whoever the Democrat was, you were off the ballot.” “It would be a matter of a few states deciding the outcome.”
Justice Elena Kagan asked, “Why does one state decide who becomes president of the United States?” Calling this “quite exceptional”.
Kagan also asked if it was “contrary”, to say that the rules do not apply when it comes to Trump, but to other candidates for public office.
