The United States Supreme Court reinstated Donald Trump on the 2024 presidential primary ballots, rejecting state attempts to hold the former Republican president accountable for the assault on the Capitol in January 2021.
A day before Super Tuesday—the day with the highest number of states in primary elections—the judges ruled that states cannot invoke a post-Civil War constitutional provision to prevent presidential candidates from appearing on the ballots. That power resides in Congress, the court wrote in an unsigned opinion.
The result puts an end to efforts in Colorado, Illinois, Maine, and other places to remove Trump from the electoral ballot, the favorite for his party's nomination, due to his attempts to reverse his defeat in the 2020 elections against Joe Biden, which culminated in the assault on January 6, 2021, on the Congress headquarters, when lawmakers were about to certify the Democrat's victory.
Trump's case was the first in the Supreme Court to address the 14th constitutional amendment adopted after the Civil War to prevent former officials who "participated in the insurrection" from holding public office again.
"We conclude that states can disqualify people who hold or attempt to hold state offices. However, states do not have power under the Constitution to enforce Section 3 with respect to federal offices, especially the Presidency," says the ruling.
Although the judges offered different reasons, the decision was unanimous and marks the most direct intervention of the Supreme Court in an election since the Bush and Gore decision, which resolved a dispute over votes in Florida and ultimately awarded the victory to George W. Bush, who served as president between 2001 and 2009.
On February 8, the Supreme Court justices held a hearing to listen to the arguments of the parties about the Colorado case and then they were reticent about the implications that Trump's expulsion from that state's primaries could have at the national level, especially in view of the November elections.