NINE TO ZERO — The Supreme Court dealt a unanimous and decisive blow today to a long-shot bid to disqualify Donald Trump from running for reelection this year, clearing the way for a rematch with President Joe Biden. It’s the end of yet another unprecedented chapter in the long and still-unfurling story of Trump’s legal woes. The challenge to Trump’s candidacy was based on the argument that he should be disqualified from holding federal office under a once-obscure section of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that precludes anyone from holding federal office if they “have engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the United States. In December, the Colorado Supreme Court endorsed that theory, concluding that the actions by Trump in the run-up to Jan. 6, 2021 — which the court described as a campaign “over several months” that was designed “to prevent what he falsely characterized as an alleged fraud on the people of this country” — disqualified him from running for reelection. The decision drew praise from some prominent lawyers and legal analysts, particularly some anti-Trump conservatives who described the Colorado court’s ruling as “unassailable” and self-evidently correct. All nine Supreme Court justices — including the court’s three liberals — saw things differently. The justices unanimously held that the 14th Amendment does not allow the states — as opposed to the federal government — to prevent a candidate from holding federal office. Five of the court’s six conservative justices (a majority of the full court) went further to hold that Congress itself must enact detailed legislation in order to implement the broad prohibition set forth in the amendment. The structure of the decision was unusual, however, and itself revealing. The court released an unsigned and unanimous “per curiam” decision with the principal holdings. That may have reflected a desire on the part of the justices to project a unified front on this crucial constitutional and electoral question in a particularly volatile time in American political life. The justices ended up splitting, however, on the question of whether Congress must enact legislation to implement the prohibition or whether other federal actors, including federal judges, should be able to do so under appropriate circumstances. In a separate concurrence, conservative justice Amy Coney Barrett argued that it was unnecessary for the majority to determine whether “federal legislation is the exclusive vehicle through which [the prohibition] can be enforced” and she urged the public to focus on the bottom line. “All nine Justices agree on the outcome of this case,” Barrett wrote. “That is the message Americans should take home.” The three liberal justices wrote separately as well. They reiterated their support for the unanimous conclusion that the states should not be able to enforce the disqualification provision. But they took sharp issue with the majority’s further conclusion that Congress must act in order for the provision to be enforceable. The conservative majority, the liberals wrote, reached out “to decide … questions not before us, and to foreclose future efforts to disqualify a Presidential candidate under that provision. In a sensitive case crying out for judicial restraint, it abandons that course.” Despite all this, the overall result was not surprising to most analysts who had been following the proceedings closely since the beginning — particularly after a law review article authored by two conservative law professors attracted mainstream media coverage last summer and further energized the legal campaign to disqualify Trump. That article was based on a conservative theory of constitutional interpretation known as originalism, but it was far from air-tight even on its own terms, and some obvious obstacles — including the problems that ultimately proved fatal today — were apparent from the outset. The bid to disqualify Trump resulted in a political dynamic that has become common in his legal cases. For Trump’s most ardent supporters, it was yet another unprecedented and corrupt effort to “weaponize” the law against the former president. For his most dogged opponents, here was an ironclad legal tool that could finally end Trump’s political career; the only thing necessary was for the public and the courts to see the light. Both sides (yes, both) were wrong. The Supreme Court’s decision today makes clear that Americans should brace themselves for a rematch between the current and former presidents, whether they like it or not. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight’s author at akhardori@politico.com.
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