Donald Trump cannot be removed from the ballots in Colorado, the Supreme Court ruled in a judgment rendered Monday.
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The latter stressed that the Supreme Court of the State of Colorado had made an “error”.
Without qualifying the actions of the outgoing Republican president on January 6, 2021, the nine judges consider that only Congress and not a State is authorized to remove a candidate from the ballot for the presidential election.
“A GREAT VICTORY FOR AMERICA!!!”, applauded Donald Trump on his Truth Social network after the Supreme Court overturned a Colorado court decision.
AFP
Of the thirty states in which ineligibility appeals were brought against him, only two were successful, in Colorado, Maine (northeast), which also votes on Tuesday, and Illinois (north).
Several states were nevertheless waiting for the Supreme Court to rule in order to rule definitively.
Legal commentators argued over the validity as well as the political expediency of these procedures.
But everyone agreed on the hypothesis that the court with a conservative majority, scalded by its controversial 2000 decision giving victory to Republican George W. Bush over Democrat Al Gore, is keen to avoid being open to suspicion of interference. electoral.
During the debates in February, most of the nine judges, regardless of their orientation, were careful not to venture into the minefield of Donald Trump’s actions during the assault on the Capitol. But they emphasized the legal obstacles and potential fallout from upholding Colorado’s decision.
This decision was based on the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, adopted in 1868, which then targeted supporters of the Southern Confederacy defeated during the Civil War (1861-1865).
It excludes from the highest public functions anyone who has engaged in acts of “rebellion” after having taken an oath to defend the Constitution.
“Because the Constitution gives Congress, and not the States, responsibility for enforcing Section 3 (of the 14th Amendment) against federal office holders and candidates, we overturn” the Colorado decision, explain the nine justices in their unanimous decision.
AFP
The three progressive judges on the one hand, and one conservative judge, on the other, nevertheless wrote separate reasons in support of the Supreme Court’s ruling.
The largely unprecedented nature of the case complicated any prediction, but many experts attributed the temptation to the nine judges to find a “loophole” to keep Donald Trump’s name on the ballots.
The Colorado courts considered that the actions of Donald Trump on January 6, 2021 fell within the 14th Amendment.
That day, hundreds of supporters of the outgoing president, heated in particular by his unfounded allegations of electoral fraud, stormed the Capitol, the sanctuary of American democracy, to try to prevent the certification of the victory. of his Democratic opponent Joe Biden.
