Washington DC – Former US President Donald Trump hailed it as a victory. His critics decried this as a blow to accountability.
But experts say the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to allow Trump to remain in the Colorado primary was always the most likely outcome. The controversy is in the details, they argue.
The Supreme Court on Monday struck down Colorado's effort to bar President Trump from the state's Republican presidential primary under the 14th Amendment.
The proposed amendment includes a so-called “insurrection clause.” This is a provision in the law that disqualifies candidates from public office if they “commit rebellion or insurrection” against the U.S. government.
The Colorado Supreme Court ruled in December that President Trump violated the Insurrection Clause by inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. However, in a unanimous decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states cannot remove President Trump from their state legislatures. Preliminary vote.
Thomas Keck, a political science professor at Syracuse University, told Al Jazeera that the Colorado case faces a long and uphill battle.
“This verdict is not surprising, as it was certainly always unexpected,” Keck said. But the U.S. Supreme Court's decision raises larger questions about what guardrails exist to protect American democracy, he added.
“Three years have passed [since January 6], and Trump has almost zero influence. “This bodes badly for the health of our democratic institutions in this country,” Keck said.
The fact that no judge today has ruled against the finding that Donald Trump participated in the insurrection is incredibly eloquent. Yes, they forgave him on a technicality, but there is no doubt that he is an insurrectionist who broke his oath.
— Noah Bookbinder (@NoahBookbinder) March 4, 2024
The public's reaction is divided
After the verdict, Trump justified the incident as part of a political and legal “witch hunt” aimed at hurting his re-election chances.
Following Monday's verdict, his supporters quickly seized on the narrative.
Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz said in a social media post that the decision was a defeat due to “legislative election interference.” Fellow Republican Rep. William Timmons hailed it as “a huge victory for America and a huge loss for Democrats seeking to interfere in our elections.”
Democrats, on the other hand, reacted with a mix of anger and ambivalence, with some questioning the policy of removing Trump from the ballot.
Quentin Fawkes, President Joe Biden's re-election campaign manager, reacted with indifference to the Supreme Court's decision. After defeating Trump in the 2020 presidential election, Biden is likely to face Trump again in this year's general election.
“We're not really concerned about it,” Fulks said in an interview on MSNBC on Monday.
“This was not the way we had planned to defeat Donald Trump,” he continued. “Our focus from day one of launching this campaign has been to defeat Donald Trump at the polls.”
“It was pretty shocking.”
The Colorado case hinged on President Trump's actions after the 2020 election. After Trump lost to Biden, a mob of his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in a violent attempt to overturn their defeat.
Last September, a group of six Colorado voters, with support from the liberal watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), criticized President Trump's campaign involvement. They filed a petition in state court to bar him from voting. Riot.
Trump has long faced accusations that he incited his supporters with false claims that the election was stolen through massive fraud.
In Monday's ruling, the Supreme Court's nine justices (six conservatives and three leftists) unanimously ruled that states can disqualify only those who hold or seek state-level office. agreed. They said the U.S. presidency was a different matter.
“Constitutionally, states have no authority to enforce Article III.” [of the 14th Amendment] “When it comes to federal jobs, especially the presidency,” they wrote.
But from there the unanimity ended. In an unsigned majority opinion, five conservative justices argued that at the federal level, only the U.S. Congress can disqualify an individual for insurrection.
“The Constitution gives Congress the power to prescribe how these decisions should be made,” they wrote. “The amendment is only subject to enforcement by Congress.”
But critics warn that the decision's focus on Congressional action could limit the judiciary's power to interpret the 14th Amendment.
Claire Finkelstein, director of the Center for Ethics and Rule of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, called the majority's arguments “pretty shocking.”
He explained that, under the Supreme Court's logic, someone like Trump may not be disqualified from participating in the primary ballot, even if convicted of federal sedition.
She said the court would need “some provision in federal law that states that federal convictions for sedition should be considered for purposes of modification.”
On Monday, Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin told the news site Axios that he has begun work on such a bill. But critics say such legislation has a long way to go, given Mr. Trump's wide support among Republicans who control the U.S. House of Representatives.
cacophony on the bench
Other members of the Supreme Court similarly questioned the scope of the majority opinion and warned of dangerous precedent.
In a joint opinion, the court's three liberal justices (Sonia Sotomayor, Ketanji Brown Jackson, and Elena Kagan) called the opinion overreach. They argued that this effectively neutralized the court's ability to consider the issue in the future.
“This court has the power to 'say what the law is,'” they wrote. “Today, the court departs from that important principle and decides not only this case, but also future challenges that may arise.”
The three justices wrote that by leaving the issue in the hands of Congress, the majority “closed the door to other potential means of federal enforcement” in order to “insulate” the court “from future controversy.” ' he claimed.
“Today, the majority goes beyond the needs of this case and limits the ways in which Article III can prevent an insurrectionist who has broken his oath from becoming president,” they wrote. “We object to the majority's efforts to use this case to:
Defines the limits of federal enforcement of its provisions. ”
The fourth judge appointed by President Trump, Amy Coney Barrett, wrote her own opinion separate from the majority. She mentioned the tense political situation in her response.
“During the volatile period of a presidential election, the court resolved the issue politically,” she wrote.
Still, she, too, cautioned that the court's majority should not “amplify dissent by agitating.”
“Especially in a situation like this, writing about the court should lower the national temperature, not raise it,” she explained. She argued that the Colorado case did not require the court to “address complex issues.”
Whether federal law is the only means by which Sec. ”
“It could have defined this moment.”
Monday's ruling could have put Mr. Trump back on Colorado's ballot, avoiding a political third rail, a controversy that could cause further tensions. But Syracuse University's Keck nevertheless warned that the Supreme Court's decision sends a broader and disturbing message about the potential for impunity for politicians.
Keck said Trump's legal troubles draw comparisons to the prosecution of Brazil's former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, who also faces accusations of aiding and abetting a coup after losing the 2022 election. Ta.
However, Bolsonaro has since been banned from holding public office until 2030.
“Compare this to a country like Brazil, which took swift action against politicians who abused their power and tried to stay in office despite losing elections. '' Keck said.
Finkelstein also told Al Jazeera that Monday's decision was a missed opportunity to make a “very clear statement of values for the country.” She noted that the justices avoided considering whether President Trump was responsible for the attack on the Capitol.
“You could have defined this moment on January 6, 2021, as an insurrection and President Trump’s involvement,” she said.