{"id":24504,"date":"2024-03-05T20:03:28","date_gmt":"2024-03-06T02:03:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=24504"},"modified":"2024-03-05T20:03:33","modified_gmt":"2024-03-06T02:03:33","slug":"supreme-court-restores-trump-to-ballot-rejecting-state-attempts-to-ban-him-over-capitol-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=24504","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court restores Trump to ballot, rejecting state attempts to ban him over Capitol attack"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The Supreme Court<\/a> on Monday unanimously restored Donald Trump<\/a> to 2024 presidential primary ballots, rejecting state attempts to ban the Republican former president over the Capitol riot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The justices ruled<\/a> a day before the Super Tuesday primaries that states cannot invoke a post-Civil War constitutional provision to keep presidential candidates from appearing on ballots. That power resides with Congress, the court wrote in an unsigned opinion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump posted on his social media network shortly after the decision was released: \u201cBIG WIN FOR AMERICA!!!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The outcome ends efforts in Colorado<\/a>, Illinois<\/a>, Maine<\/a> and elsewhere to kick Trump, the front-runner for his party\u2019s nomination, off the ballot because of his attempts to undo his loss in the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden, culminating in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack<\/a> on the Capitol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold expressed disappointment in the court\u2019s decision as she acknowledged that \u201cDonald Trump is an eligible candidate on Colorado\u2019s 2024 Presidential Primary.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump\u2019s case was the first at the Supreme Court dealing with a provision of the 14th Amendment<\/a> that was adopted after the Civil War to prevent former officeholders who \u201cengaged in insurrection\u201d from holding office again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Colorado\u2019s Supreme Court, in a first-of-its-kind ruling, had decided that the provision, Section 3, could be applied to Trump, who that court found incited the Capitol attack. No court before had applied Section 3 to a presidential candidate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The justices sidestepped the politically fraught issue of insurrection in their opinions Monday, but some Trump critics pointed to the silence on that topic as a victory of sorts because the court failed to absolve him of responsibility for the Capitol riot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The court held that states may bar candidates from state office. \u201cBut States have no power under the Constitution to enforce Section 3 with respect to federal offices, especially the Presidency,\u201d the court wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While all nine justices agreed that Trump should be on the ballot, there was sharp disagreement from the three liberal members of the court and a milder disagreement from conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett that their colleagues went too far in determining what Congress must do to disqualify someone from federal office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson said they agreed that allowing the Colorado decision to stand could create a \u201cchaotic state by state patchwork\u201d but said they disagreed with the majority\u2019s finding a disqualification for insurrection can only happen when Congress enacts legislation. \u201cToday, the majority goes beyond the necessities of this case to limit how Section 3 can bar an oathbreaking insurrectionist from becoming President,\u201d the three justices wrote in a joint opinion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s unclear whether the ruling leaves open the possibility that Congress could refuse to certify the election of Trump or any other presidential candidate it sees as having violated Section 3.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Derek Muller, a law professor at Notre Dame University, said \u201cit seems no,\u201d noting that the liberals complained that the majority ruling forecloses any other ways for Congress to enforce the provision. Rick Hasen, a law professor at the University of California-Los Angeles, wrote that it\u2019s frustratingly unclear what the bounds might be on Congress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hasen was among those urging the court to settle the issue so there wasn\u2019t the risk of Congress rejecting Trump under Section 3 when it counts electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe may well have a nasty, nasty post-election period in which Congress tries to disqualify Trump but the Supreme Court says Congress exceeded its powers,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both sides had requested fast work by the court, which heard arguments<\/a> less than a month ago, on Feb. 8. The justices seemed poised then to rule in Trump\u2019s favor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump had been kicked off the ballots in Colorado, Maine and Illinois, but all three rulings were on hold awaiting the Supreme Court\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The case<\/a> is the court\u2019s most direct involvement in a presidential election since Bush v. Gore<\/a>, a decision delivered a quarter-century ago that effectively handed the 2000 election to Republican George W. Bush. And it\u2019s just one of several cases involving Trump directly or that could affect his chances of becoming president again, including a case scheduled for arguments in late April about whether he can be criminally prosecuted on election interference charges, including his role in the Captil riot. The timing of the high court\u2019s intervention has raised questions about whether Trump will be tried before the November election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The arguments in February were the first time the high court had heard a case involving Section 3. The two-sentence provision, intended to keep some Confederates from holding office again, says that those who violate oaths to support the Constitution are barred from various positions including congressional offices or serving as presidential electors. But it does not specifically mention the presidency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conservative and liberal justices questioned the case against Trump. Their main concern was whether Congress must act before states can invoke the 14th Amendment. There also were questions about whether the president is covered by the provision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lawyers for Republican and independent voters who sued to remove Trump\u2019s name from the Colorado ballot had argued that there is ample evidence that the events of Jan. 6 constituted an insurrection and that it was incited by Trump, who had exhorted a crowd of his supporters at a rally outside the White House to \u201cfight like hell.\u201d<\/a> They said it would be absurd to apply Section 3 to everything but the presidency or that Trump is somehow exempt. And the provision needs no enabling legislation, they argued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump\u2019s lawyers mounted several arguments for why the amendment can\u2019t be used to keep him off the ballot. They contended the Jan. 6 riot wasn\u2019t an insurrection and, even if it was, Trump did not go to the Capitol or join the rioters. The wording of the amendment also excludes the presidency and candidates running for president, they said. Even if all those arguments failed, they said, Congress must pass legislation to reinvigorate Section 3.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The case was decided by a court that includes three justices appointed by Trump<\/a> when he was president. They have considered many Trump-related cases in recent years, declining to embrace his bogus claims of fraud in the 2020 election and refusing to shield tax records from Congress and prosecutors in New York.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 5-4 decision in Bush v. Gore case more than 23 years ago was the last time the court was so deeply involved in presidential politics. Justice Clarence Thomas is the only member of the court who was on the bench then. Thomas has ignored calls by some Democratic lawmakers to step aside from the Trump case because his wife, Ginni, supported Trump\u2019s effort to overturn the 2020 election results and attended the rally that preceded the storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

apnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The Supreme Court on Monday unanimously restored Donald Trump to 2024 presidential primary ballots, rejecting state attempts to ban the Republican former president over the Capitol riot. The justices ruled a day before the Super Tuesday primaries that states cannot invoke a post-Civil War constitutional provision to keep presidential candidates from appearing on ballots. That power resides with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":24514,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1925,1386,1723,27011,1230,4604],"class_list":["post-24504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-attacks","tag-capitol","tag-court","tag-reinstatement","tag-trump","tag-voting-rights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24504"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24504\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24515,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24504\/revisions\/24515"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}