In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court ruled that former President Donald Trump stays on the Colorado ballot on Monday. The justices ruled that the 14th Amendment, Section 3, does not give states the right to remove Trump from the ballot for alleged insurrectionist behavior, issuing different reasons for their collective ruling.
“Particularly in this circumstance, writings on the Court should turn the national temperature down, not up,” said Justice Amy Coney Barrett in her judicial 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.”
In an unsigned opinion, five justices stated that Congress must be the one to give the 14th Amendment, Section 3, its force.
“The Constitution makes Congress, rather than the states, responsible for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates… The Constitution empowers Congress to prescribe how those determinations should be made,” said the judicial opinion. The three liberal justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson penned their own judicial opinion as well.
“Allowing Colorado to do so would, we agree, create a chaotic state-by-state patchwork, at odds with our Nation’s federalism principles. That is enough to resolve this case,” said Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson in their opinion. The liberal justices did have a complaint with an aspect of the concurring opinion which stipulated how Congress should enforce Section 3. Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson believe that it could “insult” former President Trump from “future controversy.”
Trump v. Anderson landed at the Supreme Court after Trump asked the Court to review the case when the Colorado Supreme Court sided with a watchdog group called Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington in a 4-3 decision, removing Trump from the Colorado Republican Primary ballot in December 2023. The court’s decision marked its most significant ruling on a presidential election since the 2000 case of Bush v. Gore, which determined the presidency in favor of George W. Bush. Trump thanked the Supreme Court for their unanimous decision in a press conference.
“It was a very important decision, very well-crafted, and I think it will go a long way toward bringing our country together, which our country needs,” said Trump. Even though Colorado, Maine, and Illinois state supreme courts ruled to remove the former president from the ballot, this Supreme Court decision will allow Trump to be on every state Republican Primary ballot, ensuring his win for the GOP nomination.
