CHICAGO — The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday that individual states do not have the authority to ban candidates from running for federal office based on the Constitution’s so-called “insurrection clause.”
The landmark ruling restores former President Donald Trump to the ballot ahead of Super Tuesday, reversing the Colorado Supreme Court’s December decision disqualifying the former president from seeking another term in office due to his involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.
It also puts a stop to efforts to block Trump’s access to the ballot in Maine, where the secretary of state declared him ineligible, and in Illinois, where a Cook County circuit judge last week overruled the state election board and declared the presumptive Republican nominee to be constitutionally prohibited from returning to the White House.
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The decision was unanimous, with an unsigned majority opinion and two concurring opinions addressing the enforcement of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, the post-Civil War clause restricting people who have engaged in rebellion or insurrection from holding federal office.
Justices ruled that Congress, rather than individual states, has the responsibility for enforcing Section 3. Allowing states to independently apply the insurrection clause could lead to inconsistencies and undermine the federal election system.
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“We conclude that States may disqualify persons holding or attempting to hold state office. But States have no power under the Constitution to enforce Section 3 with respect to federal offices, especially the Presidency,” the majority ruled.
According to the 13-page majority ruling, variations in state law and procedure could result in conflicting outcomes for the same candidate in different states. Some might allow a candidate to be disqualified based only a “preponderance of the evidence” — effectively a 51 percent standard — while others could require more, the opinion noted.
“Certain evidence (like the congressional Report on which the lower courts relied here) might be admissible in some States but inadmissible hearsay in others. Disqualification might be possible only through criminal prosecution, as opposed to expedited civil proceedings, in particular States,” it said.
“Indeed, in some States—unlike Colorado (or Maine, where the secretary of state recently issued an order excluding former President Trump from the primary ballot)—procedures for excluding an ineligible candidate from the ballot may not exist at all,” the ruling continued. “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).”
The court also contemplated the danger of disruption from attempts to enforce the insurrection clause after the vote.
“Nothing in the Constitution requires that we endure such chaos—arriving at any time or different times, up to and perhaps beyond the Inauguration,” the majority found.
All nine justices agreed with reversing the Colorado court.
In their concurring opinion, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson — the trio of justices appointed by Democratic Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden — protested the majority’s “effort to use this case to define the limits of federal enforcement” of the insurrection clause by resolving otherwise unsettled questions of how disqualification efforts must operate.
“By resolving these and other questions, the majority attempts to insulate all alleged insurrectionists from future challenges to their holding federal office,” they said.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the third of three Trump appointees to join the high court, said the suit did not require the court to address the more complicated issue of how Section 3 can be enforced and whether legislation specific to it is the only way it can be enforced.
“Particularly in this circumstance, writings on the Court should turn the national temperature down, not up,” Barrett said in her brief concurring opinion. “For present purposes, our differences are far less important than our unanimity: All nine Justices agree on the outcome of this case. That is the message Americans should take home.”
With 16 states set to hold primaries on Tuesday, both sides sought a quick decision from the Supreme Court, which heard oral arguments in the case on Feb. 8.
Trump’s lawyers said they were grateful for the Supreme Court’s affirmation of constitutional principles.
“This victory is not just for President Trump but for the integrity of our electoral system and the rights of voters across the country,” Harmeet Dhillon said in a statement. “The attempt to use the 14th Amendment in this manner was a dangerous overreach that, if left unchallenged, could have set a perilous precedent for future elections.”
Trump thanked the Supreme Court for its ruling, describing it as “well-crafted” that will help bring the country together.
“They worked long, they worked hard, and, frankly, they worked very quickly on something that will be spoken about 100 years from now, and 200 years from now — extremely important,” Trump said in videorecorded remarks.
“Essentially, you cannot take somebody out of a race because an opponent would like to have it that way, and it has nothing to do with the fact that it’s the leading candidate,” he said. “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 the person out of the race, very quickly, but a court shouldn’t be doing that.”
Representatives of the group that led the challenge to Trump’s candidacy in Illinois and has been filing Section 3 challenges across the country described the ruling as a “mockery” of the insurrection clause and “dangerous.”
“This decision is disgraceful,” said Free Speech for People Legal Director Ron Fein. “The Supreme Court couldn’t exonerate Trump because the evidence of his guilt was overwhelming, so instead the Justices neutered our Constitution’s built-in defense against insurrectionists and said the facts don’t matter.”
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The Supreme Court’s ruling renders moot the challenge to Trump’s candidacy in Illinois, where Cook County Circuit Judge Tracie Porter on Friday sided with objectors to the former president’s candidacy and overturned a unanimous Illinois State Board of Elections decision, though she put enforcement of the ruling on hold pending appeal.
Speaking on MSNBC on Sunday, Gov. J.B. Pritzker acknowledged it was the Supreme Court that would decide whether Trump would be on the ballot in his state.
“I think that we’re prepared to fight this battle at the ballot box. And you’ve got to remember, and we’ve done this twice before, we’ve beaten Donald Trump in Illinois by 16 points in 2016, 17 points in 2020,” Pritzker said.
“He’s in trouble in Illinois,” he said. “We want him on the ballot, frankly, because he’s a detriment to Republicans across the United States, but especially in Illinois.”
Trump said he believed the ruling would be a unifying factor.
“While most states were thrilled to have me, there were some that didn’t, and they didn’t want that for political reasons,” said the presumptive GOP nominee, attributing efforts to remove him from the ballot to polls favoring him over Biden.
“They didn’t like that, and you can’t do that,” he said. “Can’t do what they tried to do.”
Related: Trump Appeals Illinois Judge’s Ruling Kicking Him Off Primary Ballot
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