Former President Donald Trump will remain on all 2024 presidential primary ballots following the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling.
Democratic strategist Ameshia Cross told theGrio that this decision “was expected” and that the court did the right thing.
“If the court ruled any other way, what would have happened is patchwork,” she explained. “States would have decided maybe they would include Trump on the ballot, maybe they wouldn’t.”
On the other hand, she added that states would have had the authority “to decide whether to include President Joe Biden on the ballots as well.”
GianCarlo Canaparo, a senior legal fellow at the conservative think tank, The Heritage Foundation, said he “isn’t surprised” by the ruling.
“To remove Trump from the ballot by state bureaucrat or state judge would have been unconstitutional,” he said.
On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court published an opinion penned by Justice Amy Coney Barrett. It found that Colorado, Illinois, and Maine lack the power to remove the embattled former president from their 2024 presidential primary ballots under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
The constitutional amendment states that no individual should “hold any office, civil or military…who, having previously taken an oath…as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion.”
Barrett wrote that the 14th Amendment “on its face, does not affirmatively delegate such a power to the States.”
“The terms of the Amendment speak only to enforcement by Congress,” she added. “Granting the States that authority would invert the Fourteenth Amendment’s rebalancing of federal and state power.”
The Supreme Court decision comes nearly a month after the conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court heard hours-long arguments in the Donald Trump v. Norma Anderson case to determine whether states have the authority to bar a presidential candidate who engaged in an insurrection from appearing on the ballot.
Canaparo said the ruling sends a message that the justices believe “the electoral process is the primary way through which these kinds of disputes are resolved,” adding, “Either directly through elections or through the elected representatives in Congress, who determine when an insurrection occurred and what the punishment should be.”
Cross said the Supreme Court “does not like to rule on elections.”
“This is why it is important for every person to get out and [vote] instead of having states decide to push Trump’s name off the ballot,” she argued. “That takes away the responsibility of individuals having to show up.”
If the court ruled the other way, Cross said, “MAGA supporters would have said that this is just another way that Biden has power over state laws.”
Following Barrett’s opinion, liberal Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan wrote a concurring opinion, stating that the majority erroneously used this case to “define” how Section 3 of the 14th Amendment should be applied in the future.
The three liberal justices said legislators drafted the 14th Amendment after they experienced an “insurrection [and] rebellion to defend slavery. They wanted to ensure that those who participated in that insurrection…could not return to prominent roles.”
“Today, the majority goes beyond the necessities of this case to limit how Section 3 can bar an oathbreaking insurrectionist from becoming President,” said the justices.
U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., told theGrio that the Supreme Court “went well beyond overturning the Colorado decision.”
He believes the justices used the case to “severely curtail and limit Congress’ ability to enforce Section 3 of the 14th Amendment against insurrectionists like Donald Trump.”
The Democratic lawmaker added, “MAGA influence on the court cannot be denied, unfortunately. It’s time to expand the court to restore balance and legitimacy.”
The court’s ruling came a day before voters are expected to cast their ballots in Colorado’s 2024 presidential primary election.
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