• The Supreme Court appeared unlikely Thursday to uphold the Colorado Supreme Court's decision to disqualify former President Donald Trump from the state's ballot.
• “Your position has the effect of substantially disenfranchising voters,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh told lawyers representing Colorado voters seeking to disqualify Trump.
• Justice Elena Kagan asked an important question: Why can a single state decide who becomes president of the United States?

Nearly all of the Supreme Court justices on Thursday balked at allowing a single state to exclude former President Donald Trump from the 2024 election ballot.

The justices on Thursday heard oral arguments in Trump's appeal of the Colorado Supreme Court's December decision disqualifying him from voting under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. Because of the practical implications of this decision and the historical context of the Civil War-era amendments, the majority appears skeptical about leaving the ruling in place.

Colorado voters, along with Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics (CREW), a left-wing donor-backed group, originally filed a lawsuit in September to remove Trump from the state's ballot. They argued that his role in “recruiting, inciting, and encouraging a violent mob” on Jan. 6, 2021, was ineligible under the Civil War-era “insurrectionist ban.”

Justice Elena Kagan distilled the issue of Colorado's voters into one question. Why can a single state decide who becomes President of the United States?

This question was followed by other questions about what would happen if courts in other states produced a different fact record or reached a different conclusion about whether President Trump was involved in the riot, and the justices asked that Colorado voters gave little evidence to attorney Jason Murray. to stand on top.

Chief Justice John Roberts urged Murray to consider the “obvious consequences” of his position and how it could be used to advance partisan goals across the aisle.

“In very early order, my predictions have never come true, but I predict that a significant number of states will be voted off the ballot no matter who the Democratic nominee is. And other Republican Candidates are off the ballot,” Roberts said. “And it's going to be just a handful of states that decide the presidential election. That's a pretty scary outcome.”

“Your position has the effect of significantly disenfranchising voters,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh told Murray.

I am at the Supreme Court this morning for oral arguments considering former President Donald Trump's eligibility to vote under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution.

read more @DailyCaller:https://t.co/VS2LFkuiqk pic.twitter.com/DOY95CAmer

— Katelyn Richardson (@katesrichardson) February 8, 2024

The justices pointed to Murray's lack of historical basis. (Related: Supreme Court is set to consider President Trump's voting eligibility. Here's what you need to know)

“[T]”There were people here who felt very strongly about retribution against the South, the Radical Republican Party, but they never thought of giving the South the power to disqualify national candidates,” Justice Clarence Thomas said. Ta. “Do you have any examples of this?”

Mr Murray responded that there was no example because “elections worked differently back then.”

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson similarly pushed back on Murray's argument that there is “no ambiguity” in Article III.

“There's a list but there's no 'president' on it, there's a history that suggests they were focused on local concerns in the South, and there's a real sense that the members of Congress seem vague.” By this conversation that we discussed in , you're saying there's no ambiguity in Section 3?'' she asked.

The justices appeared to be struggling with one argument raised by Trump's lawyer Jonathan Mitchell: that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment does not apply to Trump because he is not an “officer of the United States.” was.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor questioned whether this was a “gerrymander rule” that was “designed to benefit only the client.”

A Colorado lower court judge had previously refused to issue a ruling against Trump on the grounds that he was not an “officer of the United States.”

The justices seem inclined to support the alternative argument that Section 3 is not self-enforcing. Or at least, states don't have the power to force it on candidates for federal office.

Mr. Trump's lawyers pointed to Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase's 1869 opinion in the Griffin case, which held that Article III could only be enforced by legislation by Congress.

Kavanaugh noted that Section 3 has been dormant for more than 150 years, largely because of the Griffin incident. (Related article: Liberal Justice tests the lawyer who claims to remove Trump from the vote with one key question)

“The reason it's been dormant is because there's an entrenched understanding that Chief Justice Chase was right in essence, even if he wasn't right in the details, and every branch of government has acted on that entrenched understanding for 155 years. I think it’s from the body,” he said. He said.

Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch asked questions about the difficulties that could arise if a president is disqualified from the moment he commits an insurrection, as Mr. Murray argued, and from that point on military officers. asked if he could refuse to take orders.

“If he is in fact disqualified, why should anyone follow his instructions from that moment on?” Gorsuch asked.

Alan Dershowitz, Professor Emeritus, Harvard Law School I got it. After oral arguments, Trump said he expected to win “despite what my lawyers say, and not because of it.”

“None of the lawyers adequately addressed the issues the judge was concerned about,” he said. I have written “The judge himself made the case that was best for both sides.”

So is Jonathan Turley. Said X magazine, which argued for Trump's disqualification, said: “We may have expected a snub, but this was a total snub.”

“Notably, some of the toughest and most skeptical questions came from the left wing of the court,” he said.

All content produced by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent, nonpartisan news distribution service, is available free of charge to legitimate news publishers with large audiences. All republished articles must include our logo, reporter byline, and DCNF affiliation. If you have any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact us at licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.