The U.S. Supreme Court has unanimously concluded that Colorado can’t keep Donald Trump off the ballot.
Section 3 of the 14th amendment, which says that a former officeholder who becomes an insurrectionist can’t hold federal office, won’t save us from a potential second Trump presidency. The court correctly rejected what I would call the National Treasure theory of the U.S. Constitution, according to which an obscure, almost discarded provision could have determined the outcome of a presidential election. Now it’s up to we the people to save our democracy.
The court’s opinion was an unsigned per curiam, which means no single justice has authorship. In one of its two parts, the court held that a state — in this case Colorado — doesn’t have the authority under section 3 of the federal Constitution to decide whether a candidate for office is disqualified for insurrection or rebellion. In the other part of the opinion, the court held that, for Section 3 to go into effect, Congress would have to pass a law specifying the procedures that would be required to determine whether a candidate was in fact disqualified.