The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Donald Trump cannot be kept off the 2024 presidential ballot in Colorado — or any other state.
The justices voted 9-0 that Colorado did not have the right to act on its own to bar him for violating the 14th Amendment’s so-called insurrection clause.
But they split along ideological lines about the legal meaning of the ruling and what should happen if Trump would be found to have led an insurrection by inciting the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Here are five takeaways:
Trump will be on the ballot in 2024 everywhere
All nine Supreme Court justices agreed that individual states like Colorado do not have the right to bar Trump from the Republican presidential primary or general election ballots, assuming he is the GOP nominee.
A five-judge majority of the court also further ruled that only Congress could pass legislation barring an accused insurrectionist from becoming president.
But such legislation is unlikely to be passed anytime soon given the divided Congress, where the House is led by Republicans and Democrats lead the Senate.
States cannot use 14th Amendment to bar candidates for federal offices
All the justices agreed that individual states should not be permitted to decide whether a presidential candidate is ineligible for office.
The unanimous decision said allowing states to do so would create a “chaotic patchwork” of rules for electing the person to serve America’s highest office.
The justices did not address the fact that such a patchwork already exists when it comes to ballot access for third-party and independent candidates, not to mention voting rules like those covering voting by mail and barring felons from voting.
Four dispute idea that only Congress can enforce insurrection clause
The court’s three liberal justices disputed the majority’s contention that the only way for a candidate accused of being an insurrectionist to be barred from the ballot would be for Congress to pass legislation.
The trio’s concurring opinion suggested that the Supreme Court could bar a presidential candidate under the 14th Amendment if that person had been categorically found to have participated in an insurrection, perhaps by his or her own admission.
The liberals also slammed the court for going beyond what was required to decide the matter at hand, a key judicial principal that the top court’s conservative majority has regularly invoked in recent decisions. Those include its controversial decision to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion.
Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett agreed with the legal point made by the three liberals, but declined to join their opinion. She criticized the “stridency” of their views.
Ruling sidesteps whether Trump led insurrection on Jan. 6
Everyone knows the ruling is about Trump.
But neither the unanimous ruling of the court nor the concurring opinions actually mention the former president by name.
That could be because the Supreme Court is generally not called upon to determine the facts of a particular case.
And in the Colorado case, the state Supreme Court found that Trump’s actions amounted to inciting an insurrection.
So there was no need for any of the justices to opine on whether they agreed with that assessment or not.
Few clues for Trump presidential immunity case
Some legal analysts believe the Supreme Court might be planning a so-called “grand bargain” on Trump: allowing him access to the ballot but refusing to block his criminal trials.
The ruling gave few signs of such a deal, which would involve rejecting his plea for blanket presidential immunity against prosecution, a very different legal issue.
A possible bread crumb about the immunity decision could be gleaned from the timing of the ballot decision, which was issued a month after oral arguments.
If the justices act at a similar pace in the immunity case, they could issue a decision by Memorial Day after hearing arguments in late April.
That timing would permit a trial to start by Labor Day in Trump’s federal election interference case if the court rejects Trump’s appeal.
