Gray Collins ’25
“No person shall . . . hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, who . . . shall have engaged in insurrection,” reads the 3rd clause of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution. This provision was “passed after the Civil War to prevent former government officials who had left the government and joined the Confederacy from being re-elected to the government after the war,” says U.S. Government teacher David Mercante.
Now, there is an ongoing lawsuit that uses this clause to disqualify former President Donald Trump from the ballot in Colorado. In this case, Trump v. Anderson, a collection of voters from Colorado argue that Trump’s actions on January 6th, 2021 amounted to an insurrection. Conversely, the former President’s lawyers stated that “there was no ‘insurrection,’ President Trump did not ‘incite’ anything, and President Trump did not ‘engage in’ anything that constitutes ‘insurrection.’”
Photo courtesy of nytimes.com
What does it mean to be disqualified from the ballot in a state? Mercante says that Trump will be excluded from the ballot if he is viewed as “ineligible to be President, similar to if he was under 35 years old, or if he was not a natural born US citizen.” If the case is upheld, then the former President’s name would not be one of the options at the polls on election day in 2024 in Colorado or Maine, another state that made a similar decision.
Now, why is the power to decide whether or not a candidate for a federal election appears on the ballot in the hands of the individual states? This is because Article I section 4 of the Constitution states, “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof.” Mercante describes the results of such a system, stating, “Different states have different requirements that candidates need to meet to get their names on the ballot for the Presidency and different states also have different laws that allow citizens of those states to file lawsuits to challenge the eligibility of people who are running for office. Colorado and Maine happen to be two states where the laws make it easy for people to challenge the status of candidates on ballots.”
This initial ruling has two parts. First, the court acknowledged that, through his impassioned speech and tweets on January 6th, Trump had played a large enough part in the storming of the Capitol for it to be considered “engaging in insurrection.” However, the district court ruled that the semantics of section 3 of the 14th Amendment precluded the President from possible disqualification. While it might seem counterintuitive that the President may not be “an officer of the United States,” this is because “the President” and “all officers of the United States” are listed independently throughout the Constitution, such as in the Appointments Clause and the Impeachment Clause. In summary, the lowest Colorado Court concluded that although Trump engaged in insurrection, the vague language of the Constitution meant he should not be disqualified.
However, the holding of the Colorado district court was appealed by Anderson and the case was brought before the Colorado Supreme Court. In a surprise decision, the Colorado Supreme Court overruled the lower court and stated, “A majority of the court holds that President Trump is disqualified from holding the office of President under Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Because he is disqualified, it would be a wrongful act under the Election Code for the Colorado Secretary of State to list him as a candidate.” This ruling was a bold decision, ignoring the concerns of the lower court that the holding “would disqualify a presidential candidate without a clear, unmistakable indication.”
Eli Engelman ’25, President of the Political Solutions Club, details, “This was an extraordinarily complex issue before the court. The court had to balance the fact that there may be a valid Constitutional reason to exclude Trump with the incredible risk of making an incorrect ruling. In the Colorado high court’s case, they thought the Constitution was clear enough to fully exclude the former President.”
Michael Whalen, faculty advisor to the Young Republicans Club, said in response to the ruling, “Myself being conservative, I tend to have more of an originalist interpretation on the Constitution. I think you have to be very careful applying the language, the Amendments, and the Constitution as a whole to the present time period.”
Now, with a final appeal having been made, The US Supreme Court will make a final, binding decision on the matter. The nine Justices, led by Chief Justice John Roberts, heard oral arguments on February 8th. Following the arguments, NBC News reported, “The Supreme Court on Thursday signaled deep skepticism that Colorado had the power to remove former President Donald Trump.” In response to opening indications, Engelman said, “While nothing is certain, indications suggest that the Court will likely rule in favor of former president Trump, either 6-3 along ideological lines or possibly unanimously.”
Either way the Court rules, there will be large public backlash from the decision. However, Conor Gaul, President of the Young Democrats Club, doesn’t see it changing the larger picture. He remarks, “I don’t think this is going to be upheld. In the end, it is going to be Trump vs. Biden in the 2024 Presidential Election, almost no matter what.” Whalen believes, “I think it’s important for people to have a voice in their government and to be able to elect and vote for someone [whom they want].”