Monday, 4 March 2024

Supreme Court Signals Possible Trump Ballot Ruling Ahead Of Colorado Primary

 The Supreme Court may issue a ruling this coming week in the Colorado ballot case against former President Donald Trump.

An update that appeared on the high court’s website on Sunday said opinions may be posted to the homepage on Monday starting at 10 a.m. and the justices will not take the bench.

Law professor Steve Vladeck, who shared a screen grab of the posting to X, said it is “*really* unusual for the Court to give such little notice — or, outside of when things were closed for COVID, to not take the bench.”

He also noted that the ruling in the Colorado case is “very likely coming tomorrow.”

Other legal experts seemed to agree that an imminent ruling in the ballot access case was a possibility, particularly because Colorado’s primary is set for Tuesday, March 5.

Colorado voters challenged Trump’s eligibility over his actions leading up to the U.S. Capitol breach on January 6, 2021.

The Colorado Supreme Court issued a 4-3 ruling in December that found Trump to be disqualified from holding the office of the presidency.

Citing Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, an insurrection clause dating back to the Civil War, the ruling said Trump should not appear on the primary ballot.

Two other states — Maine and Illinois — have moved to bump Trump from the ballot, but they may soon get overruled depending on what the Supreme Court rules in the Colorado case.

In filing an appeal to the Supreme Court in January, lawyers for Trump argued that justices should reverse the Colorado decision and “return the right to vote for their candidate of choice to the voters.”

The justices reportedly appeared skeptical of the effort to remove Trump from the ballot when they heard oral arguments last month.

Trump, who is running for another term in the White House for a second time this year, is the clear GOP frontrunner as he holds a wide delegate lead over his next closest rival, Nikki Haley.

In a separate matter, the Supreme Court announced on Wednesday that it was taking up the issue of whether Trump can invoke presidential immunity to shield himself from federal prosecution in a 2020 election case brought by special counsel Jack Smith.

The Supreme Court scheduled an oral argument for the week of April 22, 2024, raising doubts among legal experts that a trial in the case brought by Smith could be held before the election in November.

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