The US Supreme Court began a high-stakes session on Thursday to determine whether Donald Trump should be disqualified from running for president again.
The nine justices will decide whether Trump is ineligible to stand on the Republican presidential primary ballot in Colorado because he participated in an insurrection — his followers’ assault on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
It is the most important election law matter to come before the Supreme Court since it halted the Florida vote recount in 2000, when Republican George W. Bush was just ahead of Democrat Al Gore.
Jonathan Mitchell, a former Texas solicitor general who represents Trump, began the scheduled 80-minute oral arguments by stating that only Congress may disqualify a candidate.
Before the hearing, about 20 protesters, some holding signs saying “Trump Is A Traitor” and “Remove Trump,” gathered outside the courthouse.
Colorado’s Supreme Court concluded in December, invoking the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, that Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination in 2024, should be prevented from appearing on the ballot due to his involvement on January 6.
Section 3 of the 14th Amendment prohibits anybody from holding public office if they participated in “insurrection or rebellion” after previously promising to support and protect the Constitution.
The amendment, passed in 1868 following the Civil War, sought to prohibit supporters of the slave-owning breakaway Confederacy from being elected to Congress or holding government jobs.
The 77-year-old Trump asked the Supreme Court to overturn the Colorado verdict and similar efforts in other states to keep him off the ballot.
“The Colorado Supreme Court’s decision is wrong and should be reversed for numerous independent reasons,” Mitchell stated. He went on to say that it would “take away the votes of potentially tens of millions of Americans.”
‘Outlier’
The Supreme Court has traditionally avoided getting involved in divisive political issues, but it is taking center stage this year in the presidential race.
Aside from the Colorado case, the Supreme Court may agree to hear Trump’s appeal of a lower court decision that he is not immune from criminal prosecution as a former president and can be indicted on accusations of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election.
Most legal experts believe the court, which includes three Trump-appointed judges, will rule in his favor and keep him on the ballot.
“I suspect that the majority on this court will not want to be perceived as taking away a candidate’s choice from a significant number of voters,” said Steven Schwinn, a constitutional law professor at the University of Illinois Chicago.
“The most likely off-ramp for the court here, the one that it’s most likely to adopt, is to say that only Congress has the authority to disqualify a candidate.”
In their petition to the Supreme Court, Trump’s attorneys stated that the “American people—not courts or election officials—should choose the next President of the United States.”
“At least 60 states and federal courts throughout the country have refused to remove President Trump from the ballot,” the statement read. “The Colorado Supreme Court is the lone outlier.”
Trump’s counsel also stated that the 14th Amendment can only be enforced through “congressionally enacted methods” rather than state courts.
Furthermore, they claimed that the previous president “did not ‘engage in’ anything that constitutes ‘insurrection.'”
“There was no ‘insurrection,'” they explained. “The events of January 6 were not a ‘insurrection.'”
On January 6, Trump delivered an impassioned speech to thousands of supporters in Washington, just before they converged on the Capitol to disrupt legislative certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s election victory.
He was impeached by the Democratic-majority House of Representatives for instigating an insurrection, but acquitted in the Senate.