While voters have made their voices heard in two state presidential primaries thus far, the U.S. Supreme Court might ultimately decide who ends up on the 2024 ballot depending on how the justices rule in an unprecedented insurrection clause case involving former President Donald Trump and the Colorado Supreme Court.
Next week, the Supreme Court will hear arguments over whether Trump can be removed from the 2024 ballot, a case which will have justices examine an obscure Civil War-era provision of the Constitution which the court has never adjudicated.
Trump was never charged or convicted of insurrection; however, the Colorado Supreme Court decided he was ineligible to be on the state ballot under the 14th Amendment's "insurrection clause."
The post-Civil War "14th Amendment: Section 3 Disqualification from Holding Office" reads:
"No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability."
Should the Supreme Court rule in favor of Colorado, the states will need to rapidly adjust their election plans.
"The ruling would be binding precedent not only for Colorado but for other states. And therefore other states, at least those where there are laws that say in order to be on the ballot you have to be eligible for the office that you're running for, Trump would be ineligible to be on the ballot in those states as well," George Mason University law professor Ilya Somin told Spectrum News.
While multiple states judiciaries are trying to remove Trump, President Joe Biden told Bloomberg's Josh Wingrove that the former president should remain on the ballot. "As far as I'm concerned, that's fine," Biden said.
David Axelrod, an adviser to then-President Barack Obama, was skeptical about what such a ruling would do to the country at large. "I have very, very strong reservations about all of this," Axelrod said last month on CNN.
"I do think it would rip the country apart if he were actually prevented from running because tens of millions of people want to vote for him. I think if you are going to beat Donald Trump, you are going to probably have to do it at the polls."
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