US Supreme Court to issue ruling; Trump ballot case looms

[March 04, 2024]  WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court plans to issue at least one ruling on Monday, the day before Colorado holds a presidential primary election in which a lower court kicked Republican frontrunner Donald Trump off the ballot for taking part in an insurrection during the Jan. 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol attack.

The Supreme Court, in an unusual Sunday update to its schedule, did not specify what ruling it would issue. But the justices on Feb. 8 heard arguments in Trump's appeal of the Colorado ruling and are due to issue their own decision.

Colorado is one of 15 states and a U.S. territory holding primary elections on "Super Tuesday." Trump is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic President Joe Biden in the Nov. 5 U.S. election.

The Republican Party of Colorado has asked the Supreme Court, whose 6-3 conservative majority include three justices appointed by Trump, to rule before Tuesday in the ballot eligibility case.

During arguments, Supreme Court justices signaled sympathy toward Trump's appeal of a Dec. 19 ruling by Colorado's top court to disqualify him from the state's ballot under the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment.

Section 3 of the 14th Amendment bars from holding public office any "officer of the United States" who took an oath "to support the Constitution of the United States" and then "engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof."

Trump supporters attacked police and swarmed the Capitol in a bid to prevent Congress from certifying Biden's 2020 election victory. Trump gave an incendiary speech to supporters beforehand, telling them to go to the Capitol and "fight like hell." He then for hours rebuffed requests that he urge the mob to stop.

Anti-Trump forces have sought to disqualify him in more than two dozen other states - a mostly unsuccessful effort - over his actions relating to the Jan. 6 attack. Maine and Illinois also have barred Trump from their ballot, though both those decisions are on hold pending the Supreme Court's Colorado ruling.

Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump reacts on stage during a campaign rally in Richmond, Virginia, U.S. March 2, 2024. REUTERS/Jay Paul/File Photo

During arguments in the Colorado case, Supreme Court justices - conservatives and liberals alike - expressed concern about states taking sweeping actions that could impact a presidential election nationwide. They pondered how states can properly enforce the Section 3 disqualification language against candidates, with several wondering whether Congress must first pass legislation do enable that.

In another case with high stakes for the election, the Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to decide Trump's claim of immunity from prosecution for trying to overturn his 2020 election loss to Biden.

The court appears likely to reject Trump's claim of immunity from prosecution, according to legal experts, but its decision to spend months on the matter could aid his quest to regain the presidency by further delaying a monumental criminal trial.

Trump's lawyers have argued that he should be shielded from prosecution for his effort to reverse Biden's victory because he was president when he took those actions, a sweeping assertion of immunity firmly rejected by lower courts.

But the Supreme Court's decision not to schedule its arguments on the issue until late April reduces the chances that a trial on the election subversion charges brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith could be finished before the presidential election.

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Scott Malone and Will Dunham)

[© 2024 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.]This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.  Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.