Trump eligible for Colorado ballot in 2024 U.S. election case: Supreme Court
globalnews.caDonald Trump is eligible to appear in Colorado’s primary ballot in a milestone 2024 U.S. election case, the Supreme Court ruled Monday.
The country’s top court overturned an earlier decision by the Colorado Supreme Court that had ruled Trump ineligible to appear in the state’s primary election, which is on Tuesday.
In its decision, the Supreme Court said only Congress can enforce the 14th Amendment’s insurrection clause against federal candidates.
Trump swiftly welcomed the decision, calling it a “BIG WIN FOR AMERICA,” in a post on his Truth social media platform.
The outcome ends efforts in Colorado, Illinois, Maine and elsewhere to kick Trump, the front-runner for his party’s 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 on the Capitol.
The Colorado court was the first to invoke a post-Civil War constitutional provision called the 14th Amendment aimed at preventing those who “engaged in insurrection” from holding office.
Colorado’s Supreme Court, in a first-of-its-kind ruling on Dec. 19, 2023, decided that the provision, Section 3, could be applied to Trump, who that court found had incited the Capitol attack. No court before had applied Section 3 to a presidential candidate.
Trump had been kicked off the ballots in Colorado, Maine and Illinois, but all three rulings were on hold awaiting the Supreme Court’s decision.
The 14th Amendment’s Section 3 bars from office any “officer of the United States” who took an oath “to support the Constitution of the United States” and then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”
“We conclude that states may
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