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      Supreme Court to Decide Whether Trump Is Eligible for Colorado Ballot

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      The Colorado Supreme Court ruled last month that the former president could not appear on the state’s Republican primary ballot because he had engaged in insurrection.The Supreme Court agreed on Friday to decide whether former President Donald J. Trump is eligible for Colorado’s Republican primary ballot, thrusting the justices into a pivotal role that could alter the course of this year’s presidential election.The sweep of the court’s ruling is likely to be broad. It will probably resolve not only whether Mr. Trump may appear on the Colorado primary ballot after the state’s top court declared that he had engaged in insurrection in his efforts to subvert the 2020 election, but it will most likely also determine his eligibility to run in the general election and to hold office at all.Not since Bush v. Gore, the 2000 decision that handed the presidency to George W. Bush, has the Supreme Court taken such a central role in an election for the nation’s highest office.The case will be argued on Feb. 8, and the court will probably decide it quickly. The Colorado Republican Party had urged the justices to rule by March 5, when many states, including Colorado, hold primaries.The number of challenges to Mr. Trump’s eligibility across the country can only have added pressure on the court to hear the Colorado case, as they underscored the need for a nationwide resolution of the question.The case is one of several involving or affecting Mr. Trump on the court’s docket or on the horizon. An appeals court will hear arguments on Tuesday on whether he has absolute immunity from prosecution, and the losing side is all but certain to appeal. And the court has already said that it will rule on the scope of a central charge in the federal election-interference case in a decision expected by June.Mr. Trump asked the Supreme Court to intervene after Colorado’s top court disqualified him from the ballot last month. That decision is on hold while the justices consider the matter.Jena Griswold, Colorado’s secretary of state, pressed the Supreme Court to act fast.“Coloradans, and the American people, deserve clarity on whether someone who engaged in insurrection may run for the country’s highest office,” she said in a statement.Mr. Trump acknowledged the court’s decision to hear the case at a rally Friday in Sioux Center, Iowa, saying he hoped the justices would fairly interpret the law. “All I want is fair; I fought really hard to get three very, very good people in,” he said, referring to his appointees. He added, “And I just hope that they’re going to be fair because, you know, the other side plays the ref.”The case turns on the meaning of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, ratified after the Civil War, which bars those who had taken an oath “to support the Constitution of the United States” from holding office if they then “shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”Congress can remove the prohibition, the provision says, but only by a two-thirds vote in each chamber.Though Section 3 addressed the aftermath of the Civil War, it was written in general terms and, most scholars say, continues to have force. More

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      Should Trump Be on the Ballot? And Other 2024 Sticky Wickets

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      Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Listen to and follow ‘Matter of Opinion’Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon MusicIs Donald Trump an insurrectionist who should be barred from the ballot? On this episode of “Matter of Opinion,” the hosts discuss who should get to decide if the former president can try to return to the White House. Plus, the hosts lay out what other stories are on their 2024 political bingo cards.(A full transcript of the episode will be available midday on the Times website.)Hill Street Studios/Getty ImagesMentioned in this episode:“The Antidemocratic Quest to Save Democracy From Trump,” by Ross Douthat in The New York TimesDecember 2023 Times/Siena poll“The 2023 High School Yearbook of American Politics,” by Michelle Cottle in The Times“Trump’s 2024 Playbook,” episode of “The Daily” from The Times“The World Should Fear 2024,” by Aris Roussinos in UnHerdThoughts? Email us at matterofopinion@nytimes.com.Follow our hosts on X: Michelle Cottle (@mcottle), Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT) and Carlos Lozada (@CarlosNYT).“Matter of Opinion” is produced by Sophia Alvarez Boyd, Phoebe Lett and Derek Arthur. It is edited by Alison Bruzek. Mixing by Carole Sabouraud. Original music by Isaac Jones, Efim Shapiro, Carole Sabouraud, Sonia Herrero and Pat McCusker. Our fact-checking team is Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker and Michelle Harris. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta and Kristina Samulewski. Our executive producer is Annie-Rose Strasser. More

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      In Tense Election Year, Public Officials Face Climate of Intimidation

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      Colorado and Maine, which blocked former President Donald J. Trump from the ballot, have grappled with the harassment of officials.The caller had tipped off the authorities in Maine on Friday night: He told them that he had broken into the home of Shenna Bellows, the state’s top election official, a Democrat who one night earlier had disqualified former President Donald J. Trump from the primary ballot because of his actions during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.No one was home when officers arrived, according to Maine State Police, who labeled the false report as a “swatting” attempt, one intended to draw a heavily armed law enforcement response.In the days since, more bogus calls and threats have rolled in across the country. On Wednesday, state capitol buildings in Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi and Montana were evacuated or placed on lockdown after the authorities said they had received bomb threats that they described as false and nonspecific. The F.B.I. said it had no information to suggest any threats were credible.The incidents intensified a climate of intimidation and the harassment of public officials, including those responsible for overseeing ballot access and voting. Since 2020, election officials have confronted rising threats and difficult working conditions, aggravated by rampant conspiracy theories about fraud. The episodes suggested 2024 would be another heated election year.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      Read Trump’s Appeal to the Supreme Court Over Colorado’s Ballot Ruling

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      ator John McCain, and Senator Ted Cruz held that the issue was for Congress and not the federal courts.

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      It would be beyond absurd-particularly in light of the Fourteenth Amendment’s enlargement of federal authority that this issue would be nonjusticiable by

      32. See, e.g., Castro v. N.H. Sec’y of State, Case No. 23-cv-416-JL, 2023 WL 7110390, at *9 (D.N.H. Oct. 27, 2023) (footnote omitted) aff’d on other grounds – F.4th —-, 2023 WL 8078010 (1st Cir. Nov. 21, 2023) (“[T]he vast weight of authority has held that the Constitution commits to Congress and the electors the responsibility of determining matters of presidential candidates’ qualifications.”); Robinson v. Bowen, 567 F. Supp. 2d 1144, 1147 (N.D. Cal. 2008) (“Arguments concerning qualifications or lack thereof can be laid before the voting public before the election and, once the election is over, can be raised as objections as the electoral votes are counted in Congress. The members of the Senate and the House of Representatives are well qualified to adjudicate any objections to ballots for allegedly unqualified candidates.”); Grinols v. Electoral College, No. 2:12-cv-02997-MCE-DAD, 2013 WL 2294885, at *5-7 (E.D. Cal. May 23, 2013) (“[T]he Constitution assigns to Congress, and not to federal courts, the responsibility of determining whether a person is qualified to serve as President of the United States.”); Grinols v. Electoral Coll., No. 12-CV-02997-MCE-DAD, 2013 WL 211135, at *4 (E.D. Cal. Jan. 16, 2013) (“These various articles and amendments of the Constitution make it clear that the Constitution assigns to Congress, and not the Courts, the responsibility of determining whether a person is qualified to serve as President.”); Taitz v. Democrat Party of Mississippi, No. 3:12-CV-280-HTW-LRA, 2015 WL 11017373, at *12–16 (S.D. Miss. Mar. 31, 2015) (“[T]hese matters are entrusted to the care of the United States Congress, not this court.”); Kerchner v. Obama, 669 F. Supp. 2d 477, 483 n.5 (D.N.J. 2009) (“The Constitution commits the selection of the President to the Electoral College in Article II, Section 1, as amended by the Twelfth Amendment and the Twentieth Amendment, Section 3,” and “[n]one of these provisions evince an intention for judicial reviewability of these political choices.”). More

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      Trump Asks Supreme Court to Keep Him on Colorado Ballot

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      The petition came in response to a Colorado Supreme Court ruling that the former president had engaged in insurrection and was ineligible to hold office under the 14th Amendment.Former President Donald J. Trump asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday to keep him on the primary ballot in Colorado, appealing an explosive ruling from the state Supreme Court declaring him ineligible based on his efforts to overturn the 2020 election that culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.That ruling, Mr. Trump’s lawyers wrote, marked “the first time in the history of the United States that the judiciary has prevented voters from casting ballots for the leading major-party presidential candidate.”Mr. Trump’s appeal adds to the growing pressure on the U.S. Supreme Court to act, given the number of challenges to Mr. Trump’s eligibility and the need for a nationwide resolution of the question as the primaries approach.Read Trump’s Appeal to the Supreme Court Over Colorado’s Ballot RulingLawyers for former President Donald J. Trump said rulings in Colorado and Maine deeming him ineligible for the ballot required the U.S. Supreme Court to act.Read Document“The issues presented in this petition are of exceptional importance and urgently require this court’s prompt resolution,” Mr. Trump’s lawyers wrote.Mr. Trump’s petition followed a similar one last week from the Colorado Republican Party. The six voters who had prevailed in the Colorado Supreme Court filed a motion urging the justices to put the case on an exceptionally fast track.The Supreme Court has not yet ruled on requests to expedite its consideration of the case. It is likely to act on them in the coming days.The Colorado case is one of several involving or affecting Mr. Trump on the Supreme Court’s docket or on the horizon. After an appeals court rules on whether he has absolute immunity from prosecution, the justices may consider that question. And they will rule on the scope of a central charge in the federal election-interference case in a decision expected by June.In a ruling last week, an election official in Maine agreed with the Colorado court that Mr. Trump was ineligible for another term. Mr. Trump appealed the decision from Maine to a state court there on Tuesday. Both rulings are on hold while appeals move forward, giving the U.S. Supreme Court some breathing room.Mr. Trump’s lawyers said the two rulings so far required the U.S. Supreme Court to act.“The Colorado Supreme Court decision would unconstitutionally disenfranchise millions of voters in Colorado and likely be used as a template to disenfranchise tens of millions of voters nationwide,” they wrote. “Indeed, the Maine secretary of state, in an administrative proceeding, has already used the Colorado proceedings as justification for unlawfully striking President Trump from that state’s ballot.”Richard L. Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, said the petition was “a strong legal document” that “raises some serious, difficult questions.”He added: “This is not to say that Trump has presented slam-dunk arguments that he should win; rather, these are arguments that merit consideration by the Supreme Court.”The case turns on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. Adopted after the Civil War, it bars those who had taken an oath “to support the Constitution of the United States” from holding office if they then “shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”Congress can remove the prohibition, the provision says, but only by a two-thirds vote in each chamber.By a 4-to-3 vote, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled in December that the provision applied to Mr. Trump, making him ineligible for another term.“We do not reach these conclusions lightly,” the majority wrote. “We are mindful of the magnitude and weight of the questions now before us. We are likewise mindful of our solemn duty to apply the law, without fear or favor, and without being swayed by public reaction to the decisions that the law mandates we reach.”Mr. Trump’s petition attacked the ruling on many grounds. It said the events culminating in the assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6 were not an insurrection.“‘Insurrection’ as understood at the time of the passage of the 14th Amendment meant the taking up of arms and waging war upon the United States,” the petition said, noting that the amendment had been adopted after “the United States had undergone a horrific civil war in which over 600,000 combatants died, and the very survival of the nation was in doubt.”“By contrast,” it added, “the United States has a long history of political protests that have turned violent.”Even if the events culminating in the Capitol riot could be called an insurrection, the petition said, Mr. Trump himself had not “engaged in insurrection.”The petition also said Section 3 did not apply to him because he had not taken the relevant kind of oath. And it said that the presidency was not one of the offices from which oath-breaking officials were barred.Mr. Trump’s lawyers said that Section 3 disqualified people subject to it from holding office — not from seeking it. If the candidate were elected, the petition said, Congress could remove that disqualification before the candidate’s term began.The petition also argued that judges may not act unless Congress does. “Congress — not a state court — is the proper body to resolve questions concerning a presidential candidate’s eligibility,” it said.More broadly, Mr. Trump’s petition said voters rather than judges should assess whether his conduct disqualified him from a second term.The provision has never been used to disqualify a presidential candidate, but it has been the subject of cases involving other elected officials after the Jan. 6 attacks.A state judge in New Mexico ordered Couy Griffin, a county commissioner in Otero County, removed from office under the clause. Mr. Griffin had been convicted of trespassing for entering a restricted area of the Capitol grounds during the attack.Another state judge, in Georgia, assuming that the Jan. 6 attacks were an insurrection and that participating in them barred candidates from office, ruled that the actions of Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, did not meet the standard for removal from the ballot. More

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      Tracking State Efforts to Remove Trump From the 2024 Ballot

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      States with challenges to Trump’s candidacy Trump disqualified, decision appealed Decision pending Challenge dismissed or rejected Alaska Ariz. Calif. Colo. Conn. Del. Fla. Idaho Kan. La. Maine Mass. Mich. Minn. Mont. Nev. N.H. N.J. N.M. N.Y. N.C. Okla. Ore. Pa. R.I. S.C. Texas Utah Vt. Va. W.Va. Wis. Wyo. Formal challenges to Donald J. Trump’s […] More

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      Gunman Arrested After Colorado Supreme Court Shooting

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      The authorities said they did not believe the shooting was related to previous threats against the justices who barred Donald J. Trump from the state’s primary ballot.A man was arrested early Tuesday after breaching the Colorado Supreme Court building, holding a guard at gunpoint and opening fire inside, the local authorities said. No injuries were reported, although the judicial center suffered extensive damage.The incident, coming two weeks after the court voted to bar former President Donald J. Trump from Colorado’s 2024 presidential primary ballot, comes as tensions have risen across the country over legal challenges to Mr. Trump’s eligibility to run for president.Justices on the court have reportedly received death threats since the decision on Mr. Trump was handed down, but the authorities in Colorado said they did not believe the shooting on Tuesday was associated with those threats, which remain under investigation.The man who opened fire inside the Colorado judicial center, which houses the state’s Supreme Court and other judicial agencies, had been involved in a car crash nearby and had reportedly pointed a handgun at the other driver, the State Patrol said in a news release.The gunman, identified by the Denver police as Brandon Olsen, 44, then shot out a window of the Judicial Center, entered the building and held one of the security guards at gunpoint, demanding the guard’s keys. The guard was not armed.The suspect then went to the seventh floor and fired additional shots inside the building, and at some point started a fire in the stairwell, the authorities said.Denver police officers and Colorado state troopers surrounded the building. At 3 a.m., officials said, the suspect called 911 and surrendered.Mr. Olsen is being held for investigation of robbery, burglary and arson, the police said. The Denver district attorney’s office will make a final determination on charges.Last week, Maine’s secretary of state, Shenna Bellows, was the victim of a “swatting” call to her home, just one day after she barred Mr. Trump from the Maine’s primary ballot because of his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.Ms. Bellows’s staff have also received “nonstop threatening communications” she said in a post on Facebook. “We should be able to agree to disagree on important issues without threats and violence,” she added. More