The justices face many questions as they review a case involving Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
Until recently the biggest concern of Donald Trump and his supporters was how ballots in this year’s election would be counted, not whether Mr. Trump’s name would appear on them. Now Colorado and Maine have decided that the former president is ineligible to hold office, and the Supreme Court has agreed to intervene.
As a political matter, banning Mr. Trump from the ballot is shortsighted and deeply troubling. It disenfranchises his supporters in a race that polls show him leading. It advances the rigged-system and self-grievance narratives that are catnip to his base. And it’s hypocritical insofar as it undermines democratic norms to take down someone regularly accused by opponents of undermining democratic norms. Republican backlash is inevitable.
As a legal matter, however, Mr. Trump’s situation is more complicated. The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal to last month’s 4-3 decision by the Colorado Supreme Court to exclude the former president from the state’s primary ballot on grounds that he engaged in insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021. Trump supporters believe that the high court’s conservative majority makes the case a slam-dunk in Mr. Trump’s favor. It’s likely that the justices will overturn the Colorado Supreme Court, but how they reach that decision is as important as what they decide.
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Jason L. Riley is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a columnist at The Wall Street Journal, and a Fox News commentator. Follow him on Twitter here.
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