The justices unanimously ruled that the former president can appear. But there was a key division.
As the Supreme Court unanimously agreed to overturn the Colorado Supreme Court ruling that blocked former President Donald Trump from access to the ballot, a 5–4 majority concurrently ruled that states do not have the power to enforce the 14th Amendment’s ban on federal candidates who engaged in an “insurrection or rebellion.”
But the four dissenting justices wrote that they believed the decision had gone too far and criticized their fellow justices over the matter. All nine justices agreed that Colorado cannot remove the former president from its ballots.
Chief Justice John Roberts as well as Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, Samuel Alito, and Clarence Thomas, who were nominated by Republican presidents, affirmed that states can’t remove a federal officer from ballots under the 14th Amendment, and especially the president. They wrote that in order to do so, Congress must first pass legislation.
“We conclude that 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 majority said. “Nothing in the Constitution delegates to the States any power to enforce Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates.”
But four justices wrote that they disagreed with that assertion, claiming it’s too broad and leaves little wiggle room for future applications of the 14th Amendment.
The Colorado Supreme Court had cited that portion of the amendment to rationalize booting President Trump from the ballot in December. A majority of its justices wrote that he engaged in an insurrection because of his actions on and before Jan. 6, 2021, when the U.S. Capitol building was breached.
The former president was also barred from the ballot in Maine and Illinois based on the 14th Amendment. Those decisions were put on hold pending the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Colorado case.
Division Emerges
Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson—nominated by Democrat presidents—wrote that the majority ruling would close “the door on other potential means of federal enforcement” and that “we cannot join an opinion that decides momentous and difficult issues unnecessarily.”
