©Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump reacts on stage during a campaign rally in Richmond, Virginia, U.S., March 2, 2024. REUTERS/Jay Paul/File Photo
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court expects to issue at least one ruling on Monday, the day before Colorado holds a presidential primary election in which a lower court kicked Republican front-runner Donald Trump off the ballot for taking takes part in an insurrection during the January elections. 6, 2021 Attack on the US Capitol.
The Supreme Court, in an unusual Sunday update to its schedule, did not specify what ruling it would issue. But the justices heard arguments in Trump’s appeal of the Colorado ruling on Feb. 8 and are expected to issue their own decision.
Colorado is one of 15 states and one U.S. territory that holds primary elections on “Super Tuesday.” Trump is the favorite for the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic President Joe Biden in the November 5 US elections.
The Colorado Republican Party has asked the Supreme Court, whose 6-3 conservative majority includes three Trump-appointed justices, to rule on the voting eligibility case before Tuesday.
During arguments, the Supreme Court justices expressed sympathy toward Trump’s appeal of the Colorado Supreme Court’s Dec. 19 ruling barring him from the state’s ballot under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Section 3 of the 14th Amendment bars from holding public office any “officer of the United States” who has taken an oath “to support the Constitution of the United States” and then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same , or gave aid or comfort to his enemies.”
Trump supporters attacked police and invaded the Capitol in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying Biden’s 2020 election victory. Trump gave an incendiary speech to supporters beforehand, telling them to go to the Capitol and “fight like a damned”. He then rejected requests for hours to urge the crowd to stop.
Anti-Trump forces have tried to disqualify him in more than two dozen other states — a mostly unsuccessful effort — for his actions related to the Jan. 6 attack. Maine and Illinois also excluded Trump from their votes, although both decisions are on hold pending the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling.
During arguments in the Colorado case, Supreme Court justices — conservative and liberal alike — expressed concern about states taking sweeping actions that could impact presidential elections nationwide. They have pondered how states can properly enforce Section 3’s disqualification language against candidates, and many question whether Congress should first pass legislation allowing it.
In another high-stakes election case, the Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to rule on Trump’s claim for immunity from prosecution for trying to overturn his 2020 election loss to Biden.
The court will likely reject Trump’s request for immunity from prosecution, legal experts say, but his decision to spend months on the matter could help his bid to regain the presidency by further delaying a monumental criminal trial.
Trump’s lawyers have argued that he should be protected from prosecution over his efforts to reverse Biden’s victory because he was president when he took those actions, a sweeping claim of immunity firmly rejected by lower courts.
But the Supreme Court’s decision not to schedule its arguments on the issue until the end of April reduces the chances that a trial on election subversion charges brought by special prosecutor Jack Smith could conclude before the presidential election.