The Supreme Court heard oral arguments Thursday over former President Trump’s ballot eligibility under the 14th Amendment, a historic showdown that thrust the justices into the center of the 2024 presidential election.
The nine justices heard an appeal of the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling that kicks Trump off the state’s primary ballot.
Both conservative and liberal justices appeared skeptical of some of the arguments made by a coalition of Colorado voters to disqualify Trump from appearing on the ballot, namely whether a single state could determine who runs for office nationwide.
Follow below for a recap from The Hill’s courts and campaign reporters.
ANALYSIS — In assessing Thursday’s arguments, the Supreme Court appeared reluctant to take the extraordinary step of disqualifying Trump from appearing on the ballot during a historic oral argument in which the justices grilled lawyers about whether states have the authority to ban a candidate from running for office.
Several justices seemed sympathetic to Trump’s argument that states have no authority to disqualify candidates, while some also questioned whether the clause applies to the presidency, both findings that would preserve the former president’s eligibility nationwide.
“What’s a state doing deciding who other citizens get to vote for president?” said Justice Elena Kagan.
Read analysis from the courtroom here.
— Zach Schonfeld
Spotted inside the Supreme Court for today’s oral arguments: D. John Sauer and Will Scharf, attorneys who represent Trump in his appeal arguing he has presidential immunity from his federal election subversion indictment.
Trump is likely to bring that case to the Supreme Court by early next week after an appeals court ruled against the former president.
— Zach Schonfeld
Trump delivered remarks from his Mar-a-Lago estate after arguments concluded, blasting the effort to remove him from the ballot as “election interference.”
“So I just say that, in watching the Supreme Court today, I thought it was a very beautiful process. I hope that democracy in this country will continue, because right now we have a very, very tough situation with all of the radical left ideas with the weaponization of politics,” Trump said.
“I thought the presentation today was a very good one. I think it was well received. I hope it was well received,” he added.
— Brett Samuels
The oral arguments have concluded just before 12:30 p.m., after about two hours of grilling by the justices of two lawyers for Trump and the Colorado voters challenging his ballot eligibility under the 14th Amendment’s insurrection clause.
The arguments included sharp questioning from all the justices that hinted at their skepticism with the voters’ position.
— Ella Lee
Chief Justice John Roberts appeared to question whether the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol attack could be considered an “insurrection” while speaking to the counsel for the Colorado Secretary of State’s office.
“What if in another case where that wasn’t a procedure that was filed, somebody — maybe they’ve got a stack of papers saying ‘Here’s why I think this person is guilty of insurrection,’” Roberts asked the counsel.
“It’s not a big insurrection, something that you know, happened down the street, but they say this is still an insurrection. I don’t know what the standard is for when it arises to that,” he continued, suggesting the definition of an insurrection was debatable.
— Caroline Vakil
Murray, who represents Trump’s challengers, argued that Section 3 already has a “democratic safety valve” built in: Trump can ask Congress to give him amnesty by a two-thirds vote
“But unless he does that, our Constitution protects us from insurrectionists,” Murray said.
“This case illustrates the danger of refusing to apply Section 3 as written,” she continued. “Because the reason we’re here is that President Trump tried to disenfranchise 80 million Americans who voted against him, and the Constitution doesn’t require that he be given another chance.”
— Ella Lee
The justices have pivoted to questioning lawyer Shannon Stevenson, who represents Colorado’s secretary of state.
Stevenson, Colorado’s solicitor general, argued that nothing in the Constitution strips states of their power to determine whether a candidate should be barred for insurrection.
“This case was handled capably and efficiently by the Colorado courts under a process that we’ve used to decide ballot challenges for more than a century,” she said.
—Ella Lee
Jackson sharply questioned the Colorado challengers over the individuals who can be disqualified for insurrection under the 14th Amendment.
Section 3 specifically lists senators, House lawmakers and presidential and vice presidential electors who have previously held civil or military office or previously took an oath as a member of Congress or “an officer of the United States.”
“Why didn’t they put the word president in the very enumerated list in Section 3? The thing that really is troubling to me …they were listing people that were barred, and ‘president’ is not there,” Jackson said.
—Ella Lee
Kavanaugh expressed concern while speaking with Murray that keeping Trump off the ballot could be a threat to democracy and disenfranchise voters.
“What about the idea that we should think about democracy? Think about the right of the people to elect candidates of their choice, of letting the people decide because your position has the effect of disenfranchising voters to a significant degree,” Kavanaugh said.
Murray argued in part that Trump had already tried to disenfranchise voters by seeking to overturn his 2020 election loss.
“This case illustrates the danger of refusing to apply Section 3 as written, because the reason we’re here is that President Trump tried to disenfranchise 80 million Americans who voted against him, and the Constitution doesn’t require that he be given another chance,” Murray said.
— Caroline Vakil
Retired federal Judge J. Michael Luttig said Thursday the Supreme Court has no “legitimate off-ramps” to avoid a decision on whether Trump should be kicked off the 2024 presidential ballot.
Luttig, a conservative who served on the 4th Circuit of Appeals for 25 years, predicted the Supreme Court is likely looking for any way to avoid a substantive ruling on the Trump disqualification case, but there really isn’t one available.
“The Supreme Court finds itself in a very precarious position today,” Luttig said in an MSNBC interview. “Undoubtedly, it doesn’t want to decide this case, and it will be looking for all legitimate off-ramps to decide that the former president is disqualified. But there are no legitimate off-ramps to that decision.”
— Nick Robertson
The former president is expected to deliver remarks shortly from his Florida estate to address the Supreme Court hearing.
Trump is scheduled to travel to Nevada later in the day to attend a caucus watch party in Las Vegas.
— Brett Samuels
Justice Neil Gorsuch, another Trump appointee that sits on the high court, expressed skepticism that the attorneys representing the Colorado voters looking to keep Trump off the ballot were correctly applying section three of the 14th Amendment.
“Could they disqualify somebody for on whatever basis they wanted outside of the qualifications clause?” Gorsuch Murray, the lawyer representing the Coloradoans who sought to keep Trump off the ballot.
“That would run into term limits,” Murray replied.
“Yeah, I would think so, right? So it has to come back to Section 3. And if that’s true, how does that work? Given that Section 3 speaks about holding office, not who may run for office was a point Mr. Mitchell was making earlier,” Gorsuch said, referring to the lawyer representing Trump.
“And I just wanted to give you a chance to respond to it because It seems to me that you know that you’re asking to enforce in an election, some contexts, a provision of the Constitution that speaks to holding office, so it’s different than the qualification clause, which is all about who can run and then serve,” he added.
— Caroline Vakil
Chief Justice John Roberts signaled skepticism of Colorado voters’ argument that the 14th Amendment was intended to allow states to determine themselves whether a candidate should be disqualified over insurrection.
Roberts said the position seemed to be “at war with the whole thrust of the 14th Amendment,” because it would have emboldened Confederate states to decide whether candidates are disqualified from holding federal office.
Later, Roberts predicted that if Colorado’s disqualification of Trump was upheld, different states would also seek to disqualify candidates across the aisle and “some of those will succeed.”
“In very quick order, I would expect — although my predictions have never been correct — I would expect that a goodly number of states will say whoever the Democratic candidate is, you’re off the ballot, and others for the Republican candidate, you’re off the ballot” Roberts said, guessing that then just a “handful” of states would decide the presidential election.
“That’s a pretty daunting consequence,” he said.
—Ella Lee
Justice Kavanaugh asked a series of questions honing in on who decides what insurrection means and whether a person has engaged in it.
“When you look at Section Three, the term insurrection jumps out and the question is — questions are — What does that mean? How do you define it? Who decides who decides whether someone is engaged in it?” Kavanaugh said.
Murray replied: “Well, certainly Justice Kavanaugh, there has to be some process for determining those questions. And then the question becomes, does anything in the 14th Amendment say that only Congress can create that process?”
— Ella Lee
Justice Elena Kagan suggested during arguments that the 14th Amendment should be decided nationally and not by one state court’s decision.
“I think there’s a question that you have to confront is why a single state should decide who gets to be president of the United States? In other words, you know, this question of whether a former president is disqualified for insurrection to be president again, is to just say it — it sounds awfully national to me,” Kagan explained.
Kagan suggested it would be “extradoinary” that a state’s secretary of state could be the difference between one candidate winning over another.
— Caroline Vakil