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The Supreme Court on Thursday could change the course of the presidential election by deciding whether former President Donald J. Trump’s actions to subvert the 2020 campaign disqualified him from holding office again. He is scheduled to hear arguments in an unusual case.
Not since Bush v. Gore in 2000, which handed the presidency to George W. Bush, has the Supreme Court played such a direct role in the outcome of a presidential election.
The scope of a court’s decision can be wide-ranging. It will likely determine not only whether Mr. Trump appears on Colorado’s primary ballot, but perhaps also his eligibility to run in the general election and become president in the first place.
The case is just one of several on the court’s docket involving or affecting Trump or approaching the court.
An appeals court ruled Tuesday that Trump is immune from prosecution for his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, giving the former president until Monday to ask the Supreme Court to block the ruling. . The justices have already decided on the scope of the central charges in the federal election interference case against Trump and have agreed to issue a ruling by June.
Thursday’s lawsuit stems from a Colorado Supreme Court ruling in December disqualifying Trump from the state’s Republican primary election under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. . This clause was adopted after the Civil War to bar rebels who swore an oath to support the Constitution from holding public office.
This article states, “No person who has previously taken the oath shall be permitted to serve as a senator or representative in Congress, or as an elector of president and vice president, or to hold any office, civilian or military, under the United States or any state.” It is stipulated that they cannot be employed in any way. , has engaged in rebellion as a member of Congress, as an officer of the United States, or as a member of a state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of a state, in support of the Constitution of the United States. or rebellion against it, or giving aid or comfort to its enemies. ”
It adds, “However, Congress may remove such obstacles by a two-thirds vote of each house.”
Trump has attacked the Colorado court ruling on at least six grounds, but their unifying theme is that elections should be decided by voters.
“Courts must swiftly and decisively put an end to these voter disenfranchisement efforts, which threaten to disenfranchise tens of millions of Americans and if other states “If courts and state officials follow Colorado’s lead and exclude the Republican presidential nominee, it will cause chaos and uproar,” Trump’s brief states.
The six Colorado voters who won the case asked the justices not to give in to threats of political violence by candidates they said were prone to political violence.
“Mr. Trump’s position assertions are political rather than legal,” the voter brief states. “He’s casually threatening to ‘make a fuss’ if he’s not on the ballot. But we’ve already seen the ‘condemnation’ hurled when Trump was on the ballot and lost.” Did. ”
Mr. Trump’s main legal argument in Trump v. Anderson, No. 23-719, is that Article 3 does not apply to Mr. Trump because the president is not among the officials covered by the provision. is. “The president is not an ‘officer of the United States,’ as that term is used in the Constitution,” his brief states.
The brief further asserted that “Article III applies only to those who have sworn an oath to ‘support’ the U.S. Constitution.” But it went on to say that “the president has taken a separate oath set forth in Article II, in which he promises to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States; I can’t find the word ‘support’ anywhere.”
In a similar vein, the brief also stated that the office of president is not a position from which officials who violate their oath are barred. “To accept the Colorado Supreme Court’s argument that Article III includes the office of president, the Framers must have included the most visible and prominent national offices in the umbrella term, which includes junior military personnel,” the brief said. “We must conclude that the president decided to embed it within the United States, but on the other hand chose to explicitly refer to the presidential electors. This reading defies common sense.”
The brief also states that those covered by Article 3 are not only disqualified from holding public office; The brief says that if a candidate is elected, Congress could lift the disqualification before the candidate’s term begins.
A Colorado judge ruled that Trump engaged in an insurrection, but accepted his argument that Article III does not apply to the president or the office of president.
The Colorado Supreme Court upheld the first part of the ruling, which found that Trump committed an insurrection, including an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Trying to change the number of votes. Encouraging false lists of competing electors. Pressure the Vice President to violate the Constitution. He called for a march to the Capitol.
However, the majority reversed part of its decision that Article III did not apply to the presidency.
“President Trump asks us to retain Article III, which disqualifies all insurrectionists who violate their oath,” the majority wrote in an unsigned opinion. except for the most powerful and ban oath violators from nearly every office, both state and federal. except for the tallest one in the land. Both results are inconsistent with the plain language and history of Section 3. ”
The court added that each state has the constitutional authority to evaluate the qualifications of presidential candidates. “If we adopt President Trump’s position, Colorado clearly cannot exclude candidates from voting who do not meet the Constitution’s age, residency, and citizenship requirements,” the majority wrote. ing.
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