NBC NEWS
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday signaled skepticism that Colorado had the power to remove former President Donald Trump from the Republican primary ballot because of his actions trying to overturn the 2020 election results.
A majority of the justices appeared during the two-hour argument to think that states do not have a role in deciding whether a presidential candidate can be barred from running under a provision of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment that bars people who “engaged in insurrection” from holding office.
Justices raised concerns about states reaching different conclusions on whether a candidate could run and several indicated that only Congress could enforce the provision at issue.
The Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, is tackling several novel and consequential legal issues concerning Section 3 of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, enacted in the wake of the Civil War.
Under that provision, aimed at preventing former Confederates from returning to power in the U.S. government, anyone who had previously served as an “officer of the United States” and was then involved in an insurrection would be barred from holding federal office.
Chief Justice John Roberts said that the “whole point” of the 14th Amendment was to restrict state power after the Civil War and questioned why it would give states the ability to kick a presidential candidate off the ballot.
Taking a similar approach, conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh said it was clear from the entirety of the 14th Amendment that “Congress has the primary role here.”
Justices also wondered about the practical implications of allowing the provision to be interpreted on a state-by-state basis.
Justice Elena Kagan, one of the three liberal justices, asked why “a single state can determine who is president of the United States. It seems quite extraordinary, doesn’t it?”
Conservative Justice Samuel Alito called states reaching differing conclusions on the issue an “unmanageable situation.”
Justice Kentaji Brown Jackson, one of the liberals, appeared to agree, asking why the authors of the 14th Amendment “would have designed a system that would could result in interim dis-uniformity in this way, where we have elections pending and different states suddenly saying, ‘You are eligible, you’re not.’”
The Colorado Supreme Court ruled in December that Trump could be thrown off the Republican primary ballot but put its decision on hold while he appealed…
