The main opinion was a joint ruling that was not signed by any particular justice. None of the opinions addressed whether Donald J. Trump engaged in insurrection.
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By Charlie Savage
- March 4, 2024Updated 3:11 p.m. ET
The Supreme Court on Monday overturned a Colorado court ruling that had disqualified former President Donald J. Trump from the state’s primary ballot, concluding that the Constitution does not allow states to invoke the 14th Amendment to bar presidential candidates from seeking office.
The ruling centered on Section 3 of the amendment, which was enacted after the Civil War. The provision bars people from office if they took an oath to uphold the Constitution but then engaged in an insurrection.
Citing Mr. Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election and the events of Jan. 6, 2021, the Colorado Supreme Court disqualified him, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the state court had no authority to take that step.
Here are some highlights.
While the Supreme Court unanimously agreed that states cannot enforce Section 3, the justices split over whether to also say how the federal government may do so. None of the opinions addressed whether Mr. Trump engaged in insurrection.
The main opinion was filed “per curiam,” meaning it was a joint ruling that was not signed by any particular justice.
Five of the conservative justices — Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh — agreed with it in its entirety. Its essence was that Section 3 does not empower states to disqualify people seeking federal office, including presidential candidates.
Main opinion
Because the Constitution makes Congress, rather than the States, responsible for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates, we reverse.
Main opinion
The Constitution empowers Congress to prescribe how those determinations should be made. The relevant provision is Section 5, which enables Congress, subject of course to judicial review, to pass “appropriate legislation” to “enforce” the Fourteenth Amendment. Or as Senator Howard put it at the time the Amendment was framed, Section 5 “casts upon Congress the responsibility of seeing to it, for the future, that all the sections of the amendment are carried out in good faith.
Congress’s Section 5 power is critical when it comes to Section 3.
Main opinion
The result could well be that a single candidate would be declared ineligible in some States, but not others, based on the same conduct (and perhaps even the same factual record).
The “patchwork” that would likely result from state enforcement would “sever the direct link that the Framers found so critical between the National Government and the people of the United States” as a whole.
Main opinion
The disruption would be all the more acute — and could nullify the votes of millions and change the election result — if Section 3 enforcement were attempted after the Nation has voted. Nothing in the Constitution requires that we endure such chaos — arriving at any time or different times, up to and perhaps beyond the Inauguration.
Main opinion
All nine Members of the Court agree with that result. Our colleagues writing separately further agree with many of the reasons this opinion provides for reaching it. So far as we can tell, they object only to our taking into account the distinctive way Section 3 works and the fact that Section 5 vests in Congress the power to enforce it. These are not the only reasons the States lack power to enforce this particular constitutional provision with respect to federal offices. But they are important ones, and it is the combination of all the reasons set forth in this opinion — not, as some of our colleagues would have it, just one particular rationale — that resolves this case. In our view, each of these reasons is necessary to provide a complete explanation for the judgment the Court unanimously reaches
Justice Barrett’s concurring opinion
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.
Liberal Justices’ concurring opinion
“If it is not necessary to decide more to dispose of a case,then it is necessary not to decide more.” Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, 597 U. S. 215, 348 (2022) (ROBERTS, C. J., concurring in judgment) That fundamental principle of judicial restraint is practically as old as our Republic.
Liberal Justices’ concurring opinion
Although only an individual State’s action is at issue here, the majority opines on which federal actors can enforce Section 3, and how they must do so. The majority announces that a disqualification for insurrection can occur only when Congress enacts a particular kind of legislation pursuant to Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. In doing so, the majority shuts the door on other potential means of federal enforcement. We cannot join an opinion that decides momentous and difficult issues unnecessarily, and we therefore concur only in the judgment.
Liberal Justices’ concurring opinion
…it would defy logic for Section 3 to give States new powers to determine who may hold the Presidency. Cf. ante, at 8 (“It would be incongruous to read this particular Amendment as granting theStates the power—silently no less—to disqualify a candidate for federal office”).
That provides a secure and sufficient basis to resolve this case. To allow Colorado to take a presidential candidate off the ballot under Section 3 would imperil the Framers’ vision of “a Federal Government directly responsible to the people.” U. S. Term Limits, 514 U. S., at 821. The Court should have started and ended its opinion with this conclusion.
Liberal Justices’ concurring opinion
Similarly, nothing else in the rest of the Fourteenth Amendment supports the majority’s view. Section 5 gives Congress the “power to enforce [the Amendment] by appropriate legislation.” Remedial legislation of any kind, however, is not required. All the Reconstruction Amendments (including the due process and equal protection guarantees and prohibition of slavery) “are self-executing,” meaning that they do not depend on legislation.
Liberal Justices’ concurring opinion
Ultimately, under the guise of providing a more “complete explanation for the judgment,” ante, at 13, the majority resolves many unsettled questions about Section 3. It forecloses judicial enforcement of that provision, such as might occur when a party is prosecuted by an insurrectionist and raises a defense on that score. The majority further holds that any legislation to enforce this provision must prescribe certain procedures “‘tailor[ed]’” to Section 3, ante, at 10, ruling out enforcement under general federal statutes requiring the government to comply with the law. By resolving these and other questions, the majority attempts to insulate all alleged insurrectionists from future challenges to their holding federal office.
Liberal Justices’ concurring opinion
“What it does today, the Court should have left undone.”
Liberal Justices’ concurring opinion
They wanted to ensure that those who had participated in that insurrection, and in possible future insurrections, 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. 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.
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