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The US Supreme Court has agreed to consider whether Colorado can ban Donald Trump from the presidential ballot, setting the stage for a potentially landmark legal decision that will have implications for the 2024 US election.
The Supreme Court confirmed late on Friday that it would hear the case, with arguments set for February 8. That puts any decision on a collision course with the presidential primary process, which will start on January 15 with the Iowa caucuses, followed by the New Hampshire primary on January 23.
Trump remains the frontrunner in the shrinking field of Republicans vying for the party’s nomination. His standing in opinion polls has only improved in recent months as his legal troubles have compound.
The move by the high court will put the spotlight on its nine justices, three of whom were appointed by Trump when he was in office.
It comes just two days after Trump petitioned the court to overturn a decision by Colorado’s state supreme court to ban him from the primary ballot there.
The court in Colorado issued its ruling last month, saying he was not fit to be president under the 14th amendment to the US Constitution, which bans individuals who have engaged in insurrection or rebellion from holding office.
Trump’s critics have labelled him an insurrectionist for his actions surrounding January 6 2021, when mobs of his supporters stormed the US Capitol in an effort to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory. The former president continues to allege the election was “rigged” against him.
Trump has argued that he is the victim of a political witch hunt, and alleged that Biden and the Democratic establishment are trying to keep him off the ballot.
In his appeal to the Supreme Court, the former president’s lawyers said the Colorado judges had “misinterpreted and misapplied the text” of the constitution by invoking the 14th amendment. They said it was up to the US Congress, not the court, to decide who was eligible to run for president, and argued that Trump had not engaged in an insurrection with his actions on January 6.
While Colorado’s decision only affects ballots within the western state, the question of whether Trump can be banned from the ballot under the 14th amendment will have implications far beyond that. A decision in favour of the Colorado voters who brought the case could invite similar challenges in other states, while a ruling against them could shut the door on a legal theory that activists had hoped would keep Trump from seeking another term.
The secretary of state in Maine, Shenna Bellows, has also moved to remove Trump from the ballot using a similar legal argument. Trump has separately appealed against her ruling, asking a court in Maine to reverse the decision and arguing that Bellows, a Democrat, was a “biased decision maker”.
At the same time, courts in a handful of states, including Michigan and Minnesota, have rejected similar lawsuits brought by Trump critics.
The Trump campaign said in a statement: “We are confident that the fair-minded Supreme Court will unanimously affirm the civil rights of President Trump, and the voting rights of all Americans in a ruling that will squash all of the remaining ballot challenge hoaxes once and for all.”
The Colorado case is not the only Trump-related case likely heading to the Supreme Court. The highest court will probably separately consider the question of whether Trump is “absolutely immune” from federal prosecution for crimes allegedly committed while he was in the White House.
Trump has argued that this presidential immunity protects him from prosecution. He is facing 91 criminal charges across four cases, including two prosecutions being led by special counsel Jack Smith.
The US Department of Justice tried to fast-track a decision over whether Trump’s immunity argument was valid, but the Supreme Court rejected the request shortly before Christmas. That sent the matter to an intermediate appeals court first, but it is widely expected that an eventual appeal will send it back to the Supreme Court before long.
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