Supreme Court agrees with Trump and allows him to run for office

The improbable journey of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution ended this Monday in Washington, where the Supreme Court decided in a unanimous decision that Donald Trump has the right to be on the ballot in Colorado, where a primary is scheduled for March 5. Colorado is one of 15 States that are voting on Super Tuesday.

“Responsibility for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates rests with Congress and not the states,” reads the Supreme Court decision. “The judgment of the Colorado Supreme Court therefore cannot stand.”

The Supreme Court of Denver had resolved in December that the so-called “disqualification clause” of the Constitution could be applied to the former president, due to the acts, classified as “insurrection,” that he carried out in the weeks before and during January 6, 2021, when a mob of his followers stormed the Capitol after a rally in Washington in which Trump harangued them to march towards Congress, where legislators were meeting that day to certify Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election. The Republican candidate refused to accept that result, and still (along with a third of the electorate) does not accept it.

Colorado, where the lawsuit was filed by a group of voters, was later joined by the state of Maine, and, last week and by surprise, by a judge from Illinois, who ruled that Trump could not participate in the primaries on March 19. Both decisions were, however, on hold pending the decision this Monday in Washington. All of these initiatives have now been rejected along with Colorado’s. Over 30 similar legal challenges had been filed throughout the country.

The nine justices of the Supreme Court (three liberals and six conservatives, three of whom Trump appointed while he was in the White House), heard the arguments of both parties on February 8 and already then seemed determined to agree with the lawyers of the former president.

The entire discussion revolved around the interpretation of a couple of phrases from the Constitution, 95 words in total that are very rarely used, and on which the Supreme Court had never ruled. This is Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, an addendum to the fundamental text approved in 1868, three years after the end of the Civil War (1861-1865). It served to grant full rights to enslaved people and to prevent the Confederate rebels from being able to hold public office again and dynamite the system from within.

The text says: “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.”

At the hearing, doubts were raised about whether this text explicitly refers to the office of president, and whether it is a provision that applies automatically or whether Congress has to set it in motion. Trump’s lawyers argued that the address to his supporters on January 6 was protected by free speech. The accused maintained that his disqualification would have amounted to an act of political persecution.

It is the second time in less than a week that the Supreme Court has given the former president a boost in his plans to return to the White House four years later. Last Wednesday, the court decided that it would answer the question of whether Trump was granted presidential immunity when he tried to reverse the electoral result of the 2020 elections, which implies a new postponement in the start of the trial against him in Washington for the events that led to the assault on the Capitol. The date to hear the oral arguments of both parties has been set for April 22. It is foreseeable that weeks will pass until the nine magistrates issue their resolution, perhaps in June. Only then, and only if they do not agree with Trump and deny his immunity claim, can the start date of the electoral interference trial be set. That could mean a delay until September or October.

The legal theory of disqualification began to take shape last August with the dissemination prior to publication of a 126-page scientific article for the legal review of the University of Pennsylvania. Entitled The Sweep and Force of Section Three, it was signed by William Baude and Michael Stokes Paulsen, two renowned conservative academics, who argue that the disqualification clause is alive and that there is no doubt that the acts of Trump fit the description. This Monday, the Supreme Court ruled against them.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition