Supreme Court Appears Set to Rule That States Can’t Disqualify Trump

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court seemed poised Thursday to issue a lopsided decision rejecting a challenge to former President Donald Trump’s eligibility to hold office again.

Justices across the ideological spectrum expressed skepticism about several aspects of a ruling from the Colorado Supreme Court that Trump’s conduct in trying to subvert the 2020 race made him ineligible to hold office under a constitutional provision that bars people who have sworn to support the Constitution and then engaged in insurrection.

The ruling is likely to resolve not only whether Trump may appear on the Colorado primary ballot but also whether he is eligible to run in the general election. The decision in the Colorado case will almost certainly apply to any other state where Trump’s eligibility to run has been challenged.

A majority of the justices indicated that they were prepared to rule that individual states may not disqualify candidates in a national election unless Congress first enacts legislation allowing them to do so. Some justices also seemed open to two other arguments: that the post-Civil War prohibition at issue, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, bars candidates from holding office, as opposed to running for it, and that the president is not among the officials to whom the provision applies.

Chief Justice John Roberts asked a series of questions reflecting what seemed to be an emerging consensus: that the 14th Amendment was not meant to permit individual states to determine whether a candidate was ineligible.

“The whole point of the 14th Amendment was to restrict state power, right?” he asked, adding that the challengers’ contrary argument was “a position that is at war with the whole thrust of the 14th Amendment.”

Justice Elena Kagan, a liberal, also expressed concern about granting individual states too much power over national elections.

“I think that the question that you have to confront is why a single state should decide who gets to be president of the United States,” she told Jason C. Murray, a lawyer for the Colorado voters challenging Trump’s eligibility.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh reviewed what he said was the relevant history and concluded that “Congress has the authority here, not the states.”

He added that the challengers’ position — that Trump may not be on the ballot — was in tension with democratic principles. “Because your position has the effect of disenfranchising voters to a significant degree,” he said.

Murray said Section 3 was meant to protect democracy.

“The framers of Section 3 knew from painful experience that those who had violently broken their oaths to the Constitution couldn’t be trusted to hold power again,” he said.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .