In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court ruled Monday that states do not have the constitutional authority to boot former President Donald Trump from the ballot.
Left-wing activist group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington backed a challenge by Colorado voters to disqualify Trump under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which was written to bar previous Confederate insurrectionists from holding office. The left-leaning Colorado Supreme Court ruled in December that Trump was ineligible to appear on the ballot.
But the high court reversed the decision and ruled the Constitution “makes Congress, rather than the States, responsible for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates.”
“States have no power under the Constitution to enforce Section 3 with respect to federal offices, especially the Presidency,” the 9-0 court concluded, in an embarrassing conclusion for everyone who preached from corporate media pages that the case for disqualifying Trump was “strong.”
The court expressed concern that any ruling otherwise would have created a “patchwork” of outcomes that would be subject to partisan whims.
“An evolving electoral map could dramatically change the behavior of voters, parties, and States across the county, in different ways and at different times,” the court held. “Nothing in the Constitution requires that we endure such chaos — arriving at any time or different times, up to and perhaps beyond the Inauguration.”
Trump faced similar challenges to his eligibility to appear on the ballot in both Illinois and Maine.
Trump reacted to the
