Writer: Madeline Odau
Editor: Simran Khanuja
Spring 2024
Trump v. Anderson started out as a case in the Colorado system, contending whether Donald Trump should be allowed to be struck from the primary ballot for the event on January 6th that is still being debated if it was insurrectionist. The Colorado Supreme Court agreed with Norma Anderson and other Colorado electors’ arguments that Trump could be struck with the logic of Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, and yet the recent United States Supreme Court decision struck down Colorado’s ruling with the argument that states by themselves have no power to strike someone from a federal election. But what could this all mean for the upcoming Presidential Election?
The Supreme Court’s ruling relied heavily on Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, “The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article” (U.S. Const. Amend. XIV, § 5). The provision of specifically Section 3, the main provision at question here, entailed the prohibition of a list of different government positions from being elected if they aided or were part of an insurrection, which Anderson claimed would work against Trump in this case as he could be considered an “Officer of the United States” (U.S. Const. Amend. XIV, § 3) which was one of the positions listed. At first glance, the court’s avoidance of making any real statements on the insurrectionist or other Trump-specific questions may seem cursory of the court, yet there may have been good reason in their doing so.
The Fourteenth Amendment specifically included Section 3 to address concerns at the time in which it was written. Because the Fourteenth Amendment as a whole was created as one of the three Reconstruction Amendments, directly following the Civil War, Section 3’s references to “insurrection” at the time were meant to clearly target Confederate politicians from the South from regaining political power in the Union so the war could be left in the past and the Union could attempt to pass further legislation seen as progressive for its time. Using this originalist interpretation of looking at the Amendment’s creational reasoning, one could also guess as to why Section 3 never explicitly states the President as one of the elections that could be barred. At the time, presidential candidates being insurrectionist in any way may not have even seemed possible. But why is this all important to consider for today? Well, for one, just the fact that insurrection is in question once again warns of the massive political tension that rests within this case and the Supreme Court. Despite the many political consequences that arise from the Supreme Court’s rulings, they are not supposed to be political in their logic for their decisions, so avoiding the subject of the actual political figure was not only the easiest route to take but also the only real option for the court, thus leading to every justice agreeing on this part of the decision.
Just like judges in a local court, the Supreme Court justices are not allowed to decide on disputes not brought before them, and certain matters require new legislation or to specifically go through elected branches—this was all a part of the set-up of checks and balances to keep the idea of the judiciary branch as a neutral third party in the decisions they make. Simply put, the Supreme Court unanimously decided that Trump could not be struck from individual state’s ballots because states themselves were not given outright permission to do so as the election pertains to a federal office. There was, however, a breakoff into a second question where the justices reached a 5-4 decision in a later part of that argument. They showed a difference in opinion in whether Section 5 specifically stating that Congress could decide these matters meant that no other institutions could, some arguing that was not a part of the case in question.
The most important thing to consider for the implications of this case may be defined best by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, “Allowing Colorado to do so would, we agree, create a chaotic state-by-state patchwork, at odds with our Nation’s federalism principles” (Constitution Center). Although this decision at first glance may sound disappointing and somewhat manipulative, if this case swung any other way, political tensions would be even higher than they already stand today, and the nation would be almost comparable to how divided it was near the time of the Fourteenth Amendment’s creation. This case did not decide the future of the election, just the possibilities of who may be on the primary ballot, as there will be further fact-finding cases that actually address the insurrectionist questions about January 6th. This case upheld judicial independence and federalist principles that our nation needs to be stable. If anything, the result of Trump v. Anderson should actually give hope for our nation’s future even while the future remains largely unclear as of the current moment.
References
Bomboy, S. (2024, March 4). The Supreme Court’s mixed opinion in Trump’s Colorado case |
Constitution Center. National Constitution Center. https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/the-supreme-courts-mixed-opinion-in-trumps-colorado-case
14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Civil Rights (1868). (2021, September 7). National
Oral Argument—Audio. (2024, February
The Federalist Society. (2024, March 5). Courthouse Steps Decision: Trump v.
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