US Supreme Court to hear Donald Trump appeal of landmark Colorado ruling

The conservative-majority US Supreme Court said it would hear arguments in the high-stakes election case on February 8.

The widely expected move puts the nine justices at the centre of a presidential election. Picture: AFP

The Supreme Court agreed to hear former president Donald Trump’s appeal of Colorado’s landmark ruling that he’s an insurrectionist and unfit for public office.

The court set an expedited schedule for the case, with oral argument on Feb. 8. A decision could come within days or weeks of the arguments.

The widely expected move puts the nine justices at the centre of a presidential election to an extent not seen since in 2000, when the court effectively decided the contest between George W. Bush and Al Gore by halting a Florida vote recount.

Some legal experts have predicted the high court will rule in Donald Trump’s favour, but on narrow grounds to sidestep the central question of whether he engaged in insurrection. Picture: AFP

There are several pending lawsuits, filed around the country, seeking to disqualify Trump from the November 2024 presidential election, in which he is the frontrunner for the Republican Party nomination. He was recently barred from the ballot in Maine, raising pressure on the Supreme Court to weigh in and clarify his eligibility.

Some legal experts have predicted the high court will rule in Donald Trump’s favour, but on narrow grounds to sidestep the central question of whether he engaged in insurrection.

The court could rule, for example, that it is up to Congress to enforce the constitutional provision at issue, Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment.

This provision, known as the “Insurrectionist Clause,” was enacted after the Civil War to keep Confederate leaders from serving in Congress. Until now, the Supreme Court has had little reason to weigh in on the scope of the provision, and in recent months lower courts have divided over whether it even applies to a former president.

In the split 4-3 decision, a majority of Colorado’s seven justices said Trump was ineligible to appear on the state’s primary ballot in 2024 because he “engaged in insurrection” on Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol and disrupted Congress’s certification of the election results.

The Colorado court halted its ruling from taking immediate effect, anticipating further appellate proceedings. That means Trump is likely to be on the ballot for Colorado’s presidential primary on March 5, unless the Supreme Court rules against him before then.

Depending on how the Supreme Court grounds its decision on the Colorado case, it could put an end to efforts in more than a dozen other states to remove Trump from the ballot.

The Michigan Supreme Court last month declined to take up the question of Trump’s eligibility under the state’s election laws. In a one-paragraph ruling, the majority wrote the court was “not persuaded that the questions presented should be reviewed by this Court.”

The Wall Street Journal