Supreme Court hears case about Trump's eligibility for another term

The Supreme Court will hear arguments Thursday in an extraordinary case that could change the course of the presidential election by deciding whether former President Donald J. Trump's conduct in trying to undermine the 2020 race made him ineligible to run again to hold office.

Not Since Bush vs. Gorethe 2000 decision that handed the presidency to George W. Bush is what allowed the Supreme Court to play such a direct role in the outcome of a presidential contest.

The scope of the court's ruling will likely be broad. Not only will it likely decide whether Mr. Trump will appear on the Colorado primary ballot, but it will most likely determine whether he is eligible to run in the general election and hold office at all.

The case is just one of several involving or approaching Mr. Trump's court docket.

An appeals court ruled on Tuesday that Mr Trump was not immune from prosecution for his role in the January 6 attack on the Capitol, giving the former president until Monday to ask the Supreme Court for a stay of that ruling. And the justices have already agreed to decide the scope of a central charge in the federal election interference case against Mr. Trump, with a ruling due in June.

Thursday's case arose from a December ruling by the Colorado Supreme Court that barred Mr. Trump from the Republican primary under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. The provision was passed after the Civil War to prevent insurgents who had taken an oath to support the Constitution from holding office.

The provision reads: “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or an elector of the President or Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, which, after he has previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of a state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, in support of the Constitution of the United States , will have been involved in any insurrection or rebellion against it, or given aid or comfort to its enemies.

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

Mr. Trump has attacked the Colorado court ruling on at least six grounds, though their common thread is that the election should be decided by the voters.

“The court must quickly and decisively end these efforts to disqualify ballots, which threaten to deprive tens of millions of Americans and promise to unleash mayhem and mayhem if other state courts and state officials follow Colorado's lead and rule out the likely Republican presidential primary. nominated from their ballots,” Mr. Trump’s letter said.

The six Colorado voters who prevailed in that state's case urged the justices not to give in to what they suggested were threats of political violence from a candidate they said had shown a propensity for it.

“The thrust of Trump's position is less legal than political,” the voter letter said. “He not so subtly threatens 'bedlam' if he doesn't get on the ballot. But we already saw the 'bedlam' that Trump unleashed when he voted and lost.”

Mr. Trump's main legal argument in the case: Trump vs. Anderson, No. 23-719, is that section 3 does not apply to him because the President is not among the officers covered by the provision. “The President is not an 'officer of the United States' as that term is used in the Constitution,” his letter said.

Additionally, the letter argued, “Section 3 applies only to those who have taken an oath to 'support' the Constitution of the United States.” But, the report continued, “the President swears a different oath as set forth in Article II, in which he pledges to 'preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States' – and in which the word 'support' is nowhere to be found is. .”

Along the same lines, the letter also said that the presidency was not one of the offices from which officials who violate the oath were barred. “To accept the Colorado Supreme Court's assertion that Section 3 includes the presidency,” the letter said, “one must conclude that the framers decided to bury the most visible and prominent national office in a collective noun that also includes low-ranking military officers includes, while choosing to explicitly mention presidential electors. This reading defies common sense.”

The letter also stated that Section 3 disqualified people subject to it from holding office – not from seeking it. If the candidate were elected, the brief said, Congress could lift that disqualification before the candidate's term began.

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

The Colorado Supreme Court upheld the first part of the ruling – that Mr. Trump engaged in an insurrection, including by overturning the results of the 2020 presidential election; trying to change the number of votes; encouraging false slates from competing voters; pressuring the vice president to violate the Constitution; and called for the march on the Capitol.

But the majority reversed the part of the decision that said Section 3 did not apply to the presidency.

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

The Court added that states have the authority under the Constitution to assess the qualifications of presidential candidates. “If we were to adopt President Trump's position,” the majority wrote, “Colorado would not be able to exclude from the ballot even candidates who clearly do not meet the age, residency, and citizenship requirements” of the Constitution.