Supreme Court interrupts its break for landmark Trump ballot case
By
Kaelan Deese
January 29, 2024 11:30 am
The Supreme Court is preparing to weigh an unprecedented dispute over whether former President Donald Trump can be barred from state primary ballots, forcing the justices to convene during a time when the high court is not normally in session.
Each high court term, which spans from early October until the end of June, the nine justices usually take a break from hearing oral arguments between late January and mid-February. This term, however, is not a normal one for the Supreme Court, which is already scheduled to consider the monumental constitutional question of whether Trump is barred from appearing on state primary ballots across the nation.
Due to Trump’s four separate indictments, two federal and two state, his arrival to the Supreme Court was always somewhat of a foreseeable event for court watchers.
But there was not an immediate urgency for the justices to wade into Trump’s endless legal tumult until Dec. 19, when Colorado’s top court ruled to disqualify him from the state’s primary ballot under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment’s “insurrection” clause, finding he played a role in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol and reversing a lower court’s ruling that Section 3 did not apply to the presidential office.
Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows decided just days later that Trump could not appear on her state’s primary ballot under Section 3, which states that “no person shall be” elected if they “have engaged in insurrection or rebellion.” Trump filed an emergency petition against the Colorado decision in early January and the Supreme Court agreed on Jan. 5 to take up the case for Thursday, Feb. 8, an atypical day given that oral arguments are normally held on a Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday.
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https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/justice/2821340/supreme-court-interrupts-break-for-trump-ballot-case/
