Trump hails ruling on Colorado ballot, turns attention to Supreme Court immunity case

PALM BEACH — Donald Trump hailed a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court ruling Monday allowing his name to remain on the ballot in Colorado.

"BIG WIN FOR AMERICA," the former president wrote in all capital letters in a post on his social-media platform.

Trump, the seemingly prohibitive candidate in the 2024 Republican primary field, elaborated during afternoon remarks from Mar-a-Lago saying "you cannot take someone out of the race" and deprive voters of a choice.

"The voters can take the person out of the race, very quickly, but a court shouldn't be doing that," he said. "And the Supreme Court saw that very well."

Trump said the ruling will be "a unifying factor" among the electorate, and build support for his candidacy.

"Hopefully Colorado is an example, will unify. I know there is tremendous support," he said. "It brought our support up very strong because people in Colorado thought it was a terrible thing that they did."

Even as Trump celebrated one ruling, he has his eyes on another, the immunity case

As much as Trump celebrated the Supreme Court win, he emphasized another high-stakes case to be heard next month by the U.S. Supreme Court — a claim of whether a U.S. president enjoys immunity for actions he takes while in office.

The Supreme Court agreed last week to hear Trump's claims of presidential immunity from prosecution on charges he sought to overturn the 2020 election. Oral arguments will be held at the high court the week of April 22.

In his remarks at Mar-a-Lago, Trump pivoted from the Colorado ruling to insist that presidents must have full immunity so that they "have the courage to make, in many cases, what would be the right decision or it could be the wrong decision." Trump said some examples of tough decisions included when he "took out ISIS," and that he didn't want to be prosecuted for his decisions.

Trump referenced the four indictments against him by saying a president should be "celebrated for having done a good job." If Trump is granted immunity by the Supreme Court, that could subvert the number of legal challenges against him.

"Presidents have to be given total immunity. They have to be allowed to do their job. If they're not allowed to do their job, it's not what the Founders wanted, but perhaps even more importantly, it will be terrible for our country," Trump said.

Legal scholars have scoffed at his arguments saying no one in the United States is above the law.

They point out that no other president in history has made such a claim, and that he faces felony charges because only he sought to undermine the legal and certified results of a presidential election. Some have even cited the pardon of Richard Nixon in 1974, which was offered and accepted precisely so the 37th president would not face criminal indictment after he resigned the presidency.

Challenge to Trump's candidacy based on Reconstruction-era amendment had failed in many states

The U.S. high court overturned a Colorado Supreme Court ruling from December, which said Trump could not appear on the state’s primary ballot because of his actions leading up to the attacks on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Monday's decision by the U.S. Supreme Court came a day before Colorado voters go to the polls for the state's "Super Tuesday" primary. Trump's name will appear on the ballot, as the state's highest court and election officials offered the concession pending the U.S. Supreme Court decision.

The 9-0 ruling by the federal high court said the Colorado plaintiffs and state Supreme Court wrongly assumed that states can determine a presidential candidate’s eligibility under a provision in the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The U.S. Supreme Court made it clear that Congress has to set rules on enforcing the 14th Amendment provision, known as the insurrection clause, not states. The ruling was immediately seen as ending two other roadblocks to Trump's ability to compete for delegates, and ultimately electors, in Illinois and Maine.

There were a slew of other 14th Amendment challenges to Trump's candidacy across the country, but in nearly every one of those cases, Trump prevailed.

Nonetheless, applying the 14th Amendment's disqualification rule to Trump became a flashpoint last year. Legal scholars, including from conservative corners, advocated for it. And state elections officials conceded they were having discussions about how they would respond if a challenge was lodged.

Earliest challenges to Trump on ballots took place in Florida

One of the earliest challenges was in Florida, where last summer a Boynton Beach lawyer filed a challenge in the U.S. Southern District of Florida. But a federal judge dismissed that complaint a week later.

The challenge cited the amendment's "disqualification clause" for those who engage in insurrections and rebellions against the United States. The amendment was ratified in 1868 after the Civil War, during Reconstruction, and also addressed the citizenship status of freed slaves and the reintegration of the defeated Confederate states into the Union.

The Amendment's Section 3 addresses the disqualification of any U.S. citizen from holding office if "having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof."

Those filing the challenges often referenced the 800-plus page report issued last year by the congressional committee that investigated Trump's role in alleged efforts to thwart the electoral process, as well as accusations that he incited the violence on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6. Those are grounds for disqualification, they say.

But constitutional scholar Kevin Wagner was skeptical of the attempts to invoke the amendment to kick Trump off the ballot because of the significant legal, constitutional and political hurdles.

"There's a legitimate argument that one can make surrounding the plain wording of the 14th Amendment and the accusations of what (former President Trump) did on Jan. 6," Wagner, a professor of political science at Florida Atlantic University, said last August. "But I think it's a harder lift than people think, and at the end of the day you have to find someone that's willing to enforce it."

Stephany Matat is a politics reporter for The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY-Florida network. Reach her at smatat@pbpost.com. Support local journalism: Subscribe today.