Supreme Court hears arguments in President Trump’s 14th Amendment lawsuit

The Supreme Court sided with former President Donald Trump on Thursday, signaling it is prepared to fend off a major challenge to Colorado’s voting eligibility.

Here are key takeaways from Thursday’s oral argument.

Conservatives are proposing several ways to side with Trump. Throughout the argument process, the court’s conservatives repeatedly questioned whether the insurrection ban was intended to apply to former presidents and whether the ban could be enforced without Congress first enacting the law. did. Some delved into the more fundamental question of whether it is democratic for courts to remove candidates from the ballot.

In one of his most memorable exchanges with lawyers, conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh said, “Your position has the effect of substantially disenfranchising voters.”

Chief Justice John Roberts predicted that if Mr. Trump is removed from the ballot in Colorado, states will eventually try to remove other candidates from the ballot. That would be inconsistent with the purpose and history of the 14th Amendment, he suggested. “It’s going to be a handful of states that decide the presidential election,” Roberts said. “That’s a pretty scary outcome.”

Mr. Jackson and liberals are asking tough questions of the challengers. Another sign that the court is leaning toward Mr. Trump’s position is that even some liberal justices asked difficult questions of the challenger’s lawyers.

Notably, Joe Biden’s nominee, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, said that even though the 14th Amendment’s provisions specifically list other targeted officials, such as members of Congress, , said it did not include the word “president.” That’s the central argument Trump’s lawyers have raised in the lawsuit. “I think it just makes you worry that they weren’t focused on the president,” Jackson said.

Justice Elena Kagan questioned the impact of a single state banning a candidate from a presidential election. “Why should a single nation have the ability to make this decision for the entire nation, not just its own citizens?” Kagan asked.

The justices did not focus on Trump’s actions on January 6th. The nine justices spent little time considering the former president’s actions over the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, which sparked voting disputes in Colorado and other states. In fact, there were even more questions about the Civil War and how the Fourteenth Amendment’s ban on insurrectionists was enacted to fight Confederate forces against the Union.