AUGUSTA, Maine — The U.S. Supreme Court appeared skeptical Thursday of the attempts in Colorado and Maine to disqualify former President Donald Trump from running in this year’s election during oral arguments in a momentous case with big implications here.
Although the high court is only considering Trump’s appeal of the Colorado Supreme Court decision in December to disqualify him from the 2024 ballot, its opinion will almost certainly affect the similar decision Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows made after the Colorado court that Trump violated the 14th Amendment’s ban on engaging in insurrection.
The Supreme Court, with a 6-3 conservative majority cemented by Trump during his four years in office before he lost to President Joe Biden in 2020, touched on some of the same issues raised in both Maine and Colorado, but both liberal and conservative justices largely focused on narrower questions and asked why one state should decide his status, in a positive sign for Trump.
Despite the thorny legal stakes, a constitutional law expert said any Supreme Court decision in Colorado should settle things rather simply in Maine by either affirming or overturning the decision from Bellows, which was paused pending the higher court opinion.
“If the Supreme Court reverses the Colorado Supreme Court, it likely would mean that Trump is eligible to run for president — in Maine and everywhere,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California at Berkeley School of Law.
Bellows, a Democrat, and the Colorado Supreme Court each determined Trump is ineligible to run for office again due to inciting the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, and violating Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. Maine and Colorado are the only two states where Trump has been disqualified, with additional challenges failing to date in other states.
Chief Justice John Roberts, who was nominated by President George W. Bush, pressed Trump attorney Jonathan Mitchell on whether he believes a secretary of state cannot bar a candidate from running for office, and Justice Sonia Sotomayor, nominated by President Barack Obama, also noted several state officials have been barred from holding office under the 14th Amendment.
But Mitchell argued that even in the case of an “admitted insurrectionist,” Section 3 “still allows the candidate to run for office, and even win election for office, and then see whether Congress lifts that disability after the election.” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, a Biden nominee, also said she “worries” whether the amendment applies to the office of the president.
Roberts later appeared skeptical of a challenger argument by saying Congress ratified the amendment after the Civil War to “restrict” the power of rogue Southern states. If Colorado removed Trump from the ballot, Roberts also wondered if red states would retaliate by disqualifying Biden.
Justices Elena Kagan, nominated by Obama, and Amy Coney Barrett, nominated by Trump, asked attorney Jason Murray, who is representing Colorado voters seeking to disqualify Trump, why should one state decide who gets to appear on the ballot.
Several justices also asked about states’ authority to ban insurrectionists and whether Section 3 of the 14th Amendment is “self-executing,” which means Congress must approve legislation before courts could enforce it. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, nominated by Trump, and others mentioned “Griffin’s Case,” an 1869 decision that found the insurrection ban required action from Congress before it could be enforced.
It is unknown when the Supreme Court will issue an opinion. But Colorado and Maine are among the more than a dozen states with Super Tuesday primary elections on March 5. Legal scholars said a divided opinion could create additional political instability.
Trump appealed the Colorado decision to the Supreme Court and the Bellows ruling to the Maine Superior Court in Augusta. Superior Court Justice Michaela Murphy put the Maine decision on hold last month and ordered Bellows to adjust her opinion as needed based on the Supreme Court’s ultimate ruling, and the Maine Supreme Judicial Court declined Bellows’ request to also weigh in on the case.
Trump’s name is already on primary ballots that were sent in January to Maine military and overseas voters and on absentee ballots distributed starting this month. Bellows spokesperson Emily Cook said the secretary “would very much welcome clear, timely guidance from the U.S. Supreme Court regarding the 14th Amendment.”
