Donald Trump may not face any obstacles in his quest to win the presidency again after the US Supreme Court unanimously overturned a state court decision that would have prevented him from running for office due to his involvement in rebellion.
On the eve of Super Tuesday primaries, which are anticipated to solidify Trump’s ascent to the Republican nomination to challenge President Joe Biden in November, the former president was granted a high-stakes decision.
Since the court stopped the Florida vote recount in 2000, when Republican George W. Bush was just ahead of Democrat Al Gore, it was the most significant election dispute it has heard.
The nine justices debated whether Trump’s participation in an insurrection—his followers’ January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol—qualified him to run in Colorado’s Republican presidential primary.
In a 9-0 decision, the conservative-dominated court said “the judgment of the Colorado Supreme Court… cannot stand,” meaning 77-year-old Trump, the Republican White House frontrunner, can appear on the state’s primary ballot.
“All nine Members of the Court agree with that result,” they added.
One of the 15 states and territories voting on Super Tuesday was Colorado, whose state Supreme Court rendered a decision that gave rise to the case in December.
Citing the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, the court decided that Trump ought to be disqualified from the race due to his involvement in the January 6 attack on Congress, which was an attempt by a mob to prevent Biden’s 2020 election victory from being certified.
If a person engages in “insurrection or rebellion” after having previously sworn to support and defend the Constitution, they are prohibited from holding public office under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
However, during a two-hour argument last month, the US Supreme Court’s conservative and liberal justices voiced concerns about letting individual states choose whose candidates would be allowed to be on the November presidential ballot.
In addition to the Colorado case, the Supreme Court has consented to consider Trump’s argument that, as a former president, he is exempt from criminal prosecution and cannot be tried separately for alleged conspiracies to rig the 2020 election.
The Democratic-majority House of Representatives attempted to impeach Trump for encouraging an uprising, but with the backing of Republicans in the Senate, he was ultimately exonerated.
On March 25, he will also stand trial in New York on allegations that he concealed payments of hush money to a porn star in order to influence the outcome of the 2016 election.