The United States Supreme Court on Monday unanimously overturned the Colorado Supreme Court ruling removing Donald Trump from the ballot over his role in the Jan.6 Capitol attack.
However, Trump appointee Justice Amy Coney Barrett sided with the court’s three liberal justices arguing that the court went too far with their ruling.
In a concurring opinion accompanying the court’s unanimous decision, Barrett criticized the five other conservative justices for going further than they needed to in their ruling by also saying that only Congress has the authority to enforce Section 3, a matter that was not before the court.
I agree that States lack the power to enforce Section 3 against Presidential candidates. That principle is sufficient to resolve this case, and I would decide no more than that. This suit was brought by Colorado voters under state law in state court. It does not require us to address the complicated question whether federal legislation is the exclusive vehicle through which Section 3 can be enforced. The majority’s choice of a different path leaves the re- maining Justices with a choice of how to respond. In my judgment, this is not the time to amplify disagreement with stridency. The Court has settled a politically charged issue in the volatile season of a Presidential election. Particularly in this circumstance, writings on the Court should turn the national temperature down, not up. For present purposes, our differences are far less important than our unanimity: All nine Justices agree on the outcome of this case. That is the message Americans should take home.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s concurring opinion in Trump’s ballot case.
The court’s three liberal justices also argued that their five conservative colleagues went too far when they weighed in on who can enforce Section 3 of the 14th Amendment and how.
“Today, the majority goes beyond the necessities of this case to limit how Section 3 can bar an oathbreaking insurrectionist from becoming President,” Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in the concurring opinion. “Although we agree that Colorado cannot enforce Section 3, we protest the majority’s effort to use this case to define the limits of federal enforcement of that provision. Because we would decide only the issue before us, we concur only in the judgment.”
Still, the Supreme Court’s 9-0 ruling stands. This means Trump will remain on the ballot in Colorado. The decision also ended similar cases that removed Trump from the ballot in Maine and Illinois.
