US Supreme Court blocks attempts to remove Donald Trump from state ballots

In a unanimous 9-0 decision the Supreme Court has reversed decisions in Colorado and Maine to remove Donald Trump from the ballot.

The Supreme Court in a unanimous 9-0 decision has declared US states cannot remove Donald Trump from their presidential election ballots, reversing a major impediment to Mr Trump’s re-election prospects one day before he is expected to win the lion’s share of Republican support in Super Tuesday primary contests.

In a fatal blow to efforts to bar the former president from running in November’s election using an obscure 19th century constitutional provision that outlaws any candidates who have “engaged in insurrection”, the highest US court said only congress had the power to bar candidates for federal offices.

“States may disqualify persons holding or attempting to hold state office. But states have no power under the constitution to enforce section 3 with respect to federal offices, especially the presidency,” the nine justices concluded on Monday (Tuesday AEDT), reversing those three and future such decisions.

“The ‘patchwork’ that would likely result from state enforcement would sever the direct link that the Framers found so critical between the National government and the people of the United States as a whole,” they added in a decision that ensures Mr Trump will be on the ballot in all 50 states.

In December Colorado’s Supreme Court endorsed a decision by state election officials to remove Mr Trump from the state’s election ballots, citing section 3 of the 14th amendment; days later Maine’s secretary of state followed suit on the same grounds, and Illinois, the fifth most populous state, last month.

“You cannot take somebody out of a race. The voters can take somebody out of a race very quickly but a court shouldn’t do that,” Mr Trump, who is expected to win all 15 states on Super Tuesday, all but guaranteeing he emerges as the GOP’s candidate for president, said in a press conference at his Mar-A-Lago residence in Florida after the Court released its decision on Monday (Tuesday AEDT).

His sole remaining rival for the GOP presidential nomination, Nikki Haley, was yet to comment on the court’s decision.

Anti-Trump demonstrators protest outside the US Supreme Court.

Noah Bookbinder, the President of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, a Democrat-aligned DC-based lobby group that backed the original Colorado decision, said Mr Trump had won only on a legal technicality.

“This was in no way a win for Trump. The Supreme Court had the opportunity in this case to exonerate Trump, and they chose not to do so,” he said on social media.

It was the second Supreme Court decision in a week that in practice helped Mr Trump’s re-election chances, after the judges agreed to take a case on whether Mr Trump was immune from prosecution for acts he committed while president, in effect delaying the start of his election subversion trial by months.

Last month the Supreme court surprised some legal scholars by agreeing to hear the case on “whether and if so to what extent does a former president enjoy Presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office”, despite unanimous rulings against the proposition by lower courts.

Mr Trump’s trial over allegations surrounding his involvement in the January 6th, 2021 Capitol Hill riot and associated alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election was due to begin in Washington DC on 4th March.

Former US President and 2024 presidential hopeful Donald Trump in Richmond, Virginia. Picture: Saul Loeb/AFP

The Supreme Court said last week it will hear arguments over whether he can be charged in late April, ahead of a likely decision by the end of June that could push the conclusion of the trial, should it go ahead, beyond the November 5th election date.

Section three of the 14th amendment, ratified in 1868 after the Civil War, outlaws anyone who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against [the US] … or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof” from standing for election.

The three judges appointed by Democrat presidents, Elena Kagan, Ketanji Brown-Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor, agreed in a separate concurring judgement that to allow a state “to take a presidential candidate off the ballot under Section 3 would imperil the Framers’ vision of a federal government directly responsible to the people”.

“Allowing Colorado to do so would, we agree, create a chaotic state-by-state patchwork, at odds with our Nation’s federalism principles,” those three judges said in a six page concurrence that quibbled with the majority only on legal theory.

A one page, parallel concurring judgement by Justice Amy Coney Barrett said Supreme Court decisions in a “volatile presidential election season… should turn the national temperature down, not up”.

“All nine Justices agree on the outcome of this case. That is the message Americans should take home”.