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Monday, March 4, 2024
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Trump Colorado Ballot Case

 * Justices Say Trump Can Stay on Ballot
 * Read the Decision
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March 4, 2024, 10:35 a.m. ETJust now
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LIVE UPDATES: SUPREME COURT RULES TRUMP CAN REMAIN ON COLORADO BALLOT

The justices ruled that the 14th Amendment did not allow Colorado to bar the
former president from the state’s primary ballot. The justices offered different
reasons, but the decision was unanimous.


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Former President J. Trump in Richmond, Va., on Saturday. The Colorado Supreme
Court had found him ineligible to appear on the state’s primary ballot.
Credit...Tom Brenner for The New York Times
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Updated 
March 4, 2024, 10:35 a.m. ETJust now
Just now

Adam Liptak

Reporting from Washington


TRUMP PREVAILS IN SUPREME COURT CHALLENGE TO HIS ELIGIBILITY. HERE’S THE LATEST.

The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that former President Donald J. Trump should
remain on Colorado’s primary ballot, rejecting a challenge to his eligibility
for another term that could have upended the presidential race by taking him off
ballots around the nation.

Though the justices offered different reasons, the decision was unanimous. All
agreed that individual states may not bar candidates for federal office under a
constitutional provision, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, that bars
insurrectionists from holding office.

The decision was the court’s most important ruling concerning a presidential
election since Bush v. Gore handed the presidency to George W. Bush in 2000.

The case arose from a challenge brought by six Colorado voters who sought to
disqualify Mr. Trump from the ballot for the state’s Republican primary based on
Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. The provision was adopted after the Civil War
to forbid those who had taken an oath “to support the Constitution of the United
States” from holding office if they then “shall have engaged in insurrection or
rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”

A Colorado trial judge ruled that Mr. Trump had engaged in insurrection but
accepted his argument that Section 3 did not apply to the president or to the
office of the presidency.

The Colorado Supreme Court affirmed the first part of the ruling — that Mr.
Trump had engaged in an insurrection. Among his efforts, as detailed in the
courts’ opinions: setting out to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential
election; trying to alter vote counts; encouraging bogus slates of competing
electors; pressuring the vice president to violate the Constitution; and calling
for his supporters to march on the Capitol.

But the Colorado Supreme Court’s majority reversed the part of the trial judge’s
decision that said Section 3 did not apply to the president or the presidency.

Mr. Trump asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene, setting out more than half
a dozen arguments about why the state court had gone astray and saying his
removal would override the will of the voters.

“The court should put a swift and decisive end to these ballot-disqualification
efforts, which threaten to disenfranchise tens of millions of Americans and
which promise to unleash chaos and bedlam if other state courts and state
officials follow Colorado’s lead and exclude the likely Republican presidential
nominee from their ballots,” Mr. Trump’s brief said.

His primary argument in the U.S. Supreme Court was that the president was not
one of the officials covered by Section 3, which does not mention that office by
name.

The full provision says: “No person shall be a senator or representative in
Congress, or elector of president and vice president, or hold any office, civil
or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously
taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States,
or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer
of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have
engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort
to the enemies thereof.”

It adds, “But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such
disability.”

It is true that neither the president nor the presidency is mentioned in so many
words. But the Colorado Supreme Court said that was of no moment given the
catchall phrases in the provision (“an officer of the United States” and “any
office, civil or military”).

“President Trump asks us to hold,” the majority wrote in an unsigned opinion,
“that Section 3 disqualifies every oath-breaking insurrectionist except the most
powerful one and that it bars oath breakers from virtually every office, both
state and federal, except the highest one in the land. Both results are
inconsistent with the plain language and history of Section 3.”

The State Supreme Court addressed several other issues. Congress does not need
to act before courts may disqualify candidates, it said. Mr. Trump’s eligibility
is not the sort of political question that is outside the competence of courts.
The House’s Jan. 6 report was properly admitted into evidence. Mr. Trump’s
speech that day was not protected by the First Amendment.

The case, Trump v. Anderson, No. 23-719, is not the only one concerning Mr.
Trump on the Supreme Court’s docket. The justices said last week they would
decide whether he was immune from prosecution for his role in the Jan. 6 attack
on the Capitol, delaying trial proceedings in his criminal case as they consider
the matter. And the justices already agreed to decide on the scope of a central
charge in the federal election-interference case against Mr. Trump, with a
ruling by June.


Show more
March 4, 2024, 10:34 a.m. ET1 minute ago
1 minute ago

Maggie Astor

Noah Bookbinder, president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in
Washington, which helped represent the plaintiffs in the case, said, “While the
Supreme Court allowed Donald Trump back on the ballot on technical legal
grounds, this was in no way a win for Trump.” He said the Supreme Court could
have exonerated Trump of engaging in insurrection and “chose not to do so.”

March 4, 2024, 10:34 a.m. ETJust now
Just now

Maggie Astor

“Every court or decision-making body that has substantively examined the issue
has determined that Jan. 6 was an insurrection and that Donald Trump incited it.
That remains true today,” Bookbinder said, adding that it was now “up to the
American people to ensure accountability.”

March 4, 2024, 10:31 a.m. ET4 minutes ago
4 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Reporting on national security and legal policy

Even though she agrees with the three liberals, Justice Barrett has written a
(very short) separate opinion rather than joining theirs because she did not
like their tone.

March 4, 2024, 10:33 a.m. ET3 minutes ago
3 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Reporting on national security and legal policy

Justice Barrett wrote: “In my judgment, this is not the time to amplify
disagreement with stridency. The Court has settled a politically charged issue
in the volatile season of a Presidential election. Particularly in this
circumstance, writings on the Court should turn the national temperature down,
not up. 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.”


READ THE DECISION IN THE TRUMP COLORADO BALLOT CASE

The justices ruled that the 14th Amendment did not allow Colorado to bar the
former president from the state’s primary ballot. The justices offered different
reasons, but the decision was unanimous.

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March 4, 2024, 10:29 a.m. ET6 minutes ago
6 minutes ago

Mitch Smith

National correspondent

Alabama’s secretary of state, Wes Allen, a Republican, said that voters in Super
Tuesday states “can hold their elections without any additional distraction
regarding this matter.”

March 4, 2024, 10:28 a.m. ET8 minutes ago
8 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Reporting on national security and legal policy

Justice Barrett, in her separate opinion, also says it was enough to rule that
states lack the power to enforce Section 3 against presidential candidates and
there was no need “to address the complicated question whether federal
legislation is the exclusive vehicle through which Section 3 can be enforced.”

March 4, 2024, 10:27 a.m. ET8 minutes ago
8 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Reporting on national security and legal policy

In criticizing the majority for unnecessarily dismissing other potential ways
federal officials might enforce Section 3 besides a congressional statute, the
three liberal justices do not specify what those alternative methods might be.
But when it comes to presidents, one obvious alternative would be that when
Congress meets to certify electoral college votes on the Jan. 6 after an
election, lawmakers could refuse to count electoral college votes won by a
candidate they deemed disqualified under Section 3 — even without a statute.

March 4, 2024, 10:24 a.m. ET11 minutes ago
11 minutes ago

Mitch Smith

National correspondent

Senator Eric Schmitt, Republican of Missouri, called the opinion “the right and
obvious call.” He added: “It’s also important the Court spoke in one voice.”

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March 4, 2024, 10:23 a.m. ET12 minutes ago
12 minutes ago

Abbie VanSickle

covering the Supreme Court

The court’s three liberal justices signed on to the decision, agreeing that a
state cannot invoke Section 3 to keep a presidential candidate off the ballot
because that would “create a chaotic state-by-state patchwork, at odds with our
nation’s federalism principles.” But they noted that they disagreed with how far
the majority went: “We cannot join an opinion that decides momentous and
difficult issues unnecessarily, and we therefore concur only in the judgment.”

March 4, 2024, 10:21 a.m. ET14 minutes ago
14 minutes ago

Abbie VanSickle

covering the Supreme Court

In their separate concurring opinion, the three liberal justices — Sonia
Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson — wrote that although they
agreed with the outcome, they thought the majority could have decided the case
more narrowly.

March 4, 2024, 10:22 a.m. ET13 minutes ago
13 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Reporting on national security and legal policy

But they criticize the majority for going further and saying that Section 3 can
only be enforced at the federal level via a congressional statute, arguing that
it was unnecessary to decide that “other potential means of federal enforcement”
are not permissible.

March 4, 2024, 10:18 a.m. ET17 minutes ago
17 minutes ago

Maggie Astor

Jena Griswold, the Colorado secretary of state, wrote on social media: “I am
disappointed in the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision stripping states of the
authority to enforce Section 3 of the 14th Amendment for federal candidates.
Colorado should be able to bar oath-breaking insurrections from our ballot.”

March 4, 2024, 10:15 a.m. ET20 minutes ago
20 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Reporting on national security and legal policy

The essence of the majority per curiam opinion is that in order to invoke
Section 3 to disqualify people from holding or seeking federal office, it is
“critical” that Congress first pass legislation to implement how that
enforcement works and under what standards.

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March 4, 2024, 10:14 a.m. ET21 minutes ago
21 minutes ago

Abbie VanSickle

covering the Supreme Court

In her separate concurring opinion, Justice Amy Coney Barrett says that she
hopes Americans will look to the decision and see common ground, not
divisiveness.

Image

Credit...Mark Schiefelbein/Associated Press
March 4, 2024, 10:14 a.m. ET21 minutes ago
21 minutes ago

Abbie VanSickle

covering the Supreme Court

Justice Barrett wrote: “The Court has settled a politically charged issue in the
volatile season of a Presidential election. Particularly in this circumstance,
writings on the Court should turn the national temperature down, not up. 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.”

March 4, 2024, 10:13 a.m. ET22 minutes ago
22 minutes ago

Michael Gold

Donald Trump is celebrating the Supreme Court’s decision, writing on his social
media platform, Truth Social, “BIG WIN FOR AMERICA!!!”

March 4, 2024, 10:11 a.m. ET24 minutes ago
24 minutes ago

Mitch Smith

National correspondent

Attorney General Todd Rokita of Indiana, a Republican, praised the ruling on
social media. “Partisan courts, activist judges and unelected politicians
overreached and tried to take millions of Americans’ voices away,” he said. Last
week, the Indiana Election Commission voted 3 to 1 to reject a challenge to
Trump’s candidacy.

March 4, 2024, 10:10 a.m. ET25 minutes ago
25 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Reporting on national security and legal policy

The Supreme Court majority opinion concludes that states may invoke Section 3 of
the 14th Amendment to disqualify oath-breaking insurrectionists from holding or
seeking state office under their own systems, but that “states have no power
under the Constitution to enforce Section 3 with respect to federal offices,
especially the Presidency.”

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March 4, 2024, 10:09 a.m. ET26 minutes ago
26 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Reporting on national security and legal policy


A LOOK BACK AT BUSH V. GORE, THAT OTHER TIME A PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION REACHED THE
SUPREME COURT.

Image

George W. Bush, the Republican presidential candidate, and Al Gore, the
Democratic nominee, during the presidential debate at Washington University in
St. Louis, in 2000.Credit...Jeff Mitchell/Reuters

The ruling on whether former President Donald J. Trump is eligible to be on
Colorado’s primary ballot calls to mind the last time the nation’s highest court
played a pivotal role in a presidential election: Bush v. Gore, one of the most
politically controversial decisions in its history.

In 2020, the Supreme Court declined Mr. Trump’s request that it intervene in his
loss to Joseph R. Biden Jr.

But in 2000, the court’s conservative majority bloc of five members issued a
hotly disputed ruling that stopped a recount ordered by the Florida Supreme
Court, ensuring that the Republican nominee, George W. Bush, would be declared
the winner of the election.

The Democratic nominee, Vice President Al Gore, won more votes nationwide than
Mr. Bush, then the governor of Texas. But because of the Electoral College
system, the election came down to which of the two candidates won a single
state: Florida.

The election there was exceedingly close — in part because a flawed ballot
design in Palm Beach County that apparently confused several thousand Democratic
voters into casting their ballots for Patrick Buchanan, the candidate for the
conservative Reform Party. (Mr. Buchanan — a critic of foreign policy geared at
aiding Israel — performed unusually well in Democratic precincts that were home
to heavily Jewish retirement communities.)

After a legally mandated machine recount, Mr. Gore was trailing Mr. Bush by only
a few hundred votes. His campaign then sought a hand recount in several heavily
Democratic counties.

That process allowed numerous votes that had been discarded by tabulation
machines to be recovered. For example, if a ballot had a “hanging chad” — a
piece of paper that was supposed to be fully popped out by a voter but remained
clinging to the punch card — a tabulation machine might have recorded it as
showing no vote cast even though a human could discern that the voter had
selected a candidate.

On Nov. 14, 2000, as the recounts were still underway, Florida’s secretary of
state, Katherine Harris, a Republican, tried to certify the county results as
they then existed. Mr. Bush, she asserted, had won the state by an official
margin of 537 votes.

But Mr. Gore promptly sued, and the Florida Supreme Court ordered a statewide
recount of more than 60,000 ballots tabulated by machines as undervotes — those
in which voters had seemingly expressed no preference in the presidential race.

Mr. Bush’s campaign then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, where the five
conservative justices issued an order halting the recount. Three days later, on
Dec. 12, 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court, by a vote of 5 to 4, declared the recount
unconstitutional.

The stated rationale of the conservative majority turned on the fact that
election officials in different counties were using different standards for
adjudicating when a flawed ballot would count as a vote. That violated the equal
protection clause, the justices said. Crucially, the majority also said no time
remained for a recount even when applying uniform standards.

Mr. Bush was deemed the winner of Florida — and became the next president.

News organizations systematically re-examined the ballots and came to a mixed
conclusion. A review by The Miami Herald and USA Today found that Mr. Bush would
still have prevailed had the Supreme Court allowed the statewide recount of
undervote ballots to proceed.

However, the outlets also found that Mr. Gore would have won the state had there
been a fuller recount that also looked at ballots discarded by tabulation
machines as overvotes, or those in which people had seemingly tried to vote for
two or more candidates. That could happen, for example, on an optical scan
ballot if a voter filled in a bubble for a candidate and then, out of misguided
enthusiasm, also wrote that candidate’s name across the paper.

Show more
March 4, 2024, 10:04 a.m. ET31 minutes ago
31 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Reporting on national security and legal policy

The U.S. Supreme Court has unanimously reversed a Colorado supreme court ruling
barring former President Donald J. Trump from its primary ballot. The opinion is
a “per curiam,” meaning it is behalf of the entire court and not signed by any
particular justice. However, the three liberal justices — Sonia Sotomayor, Elena
Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson — filed their own joint opinion concurring in
the judgment.

March 4, 2024, 10:05 a.m. ET30 minutes ago
30 minutes ago

Charlie Savage

Reporting on national security and legal policy

Justice Amy Coney Barrett also filed her own separate opinion concurring in the
judgment.

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