The state high court rejected a lower court ruling on whether Section 3 extended to the president. That and other issues would be considered by the Supreme Court.
Other questions include whether states like Colorado can determine who is covered by Section 3, whether Congress must act to bar people from office, whether Jan. 6 was insurrection, and whether Trump was simply engaging in First Amendment activity or responsible for the violent attack to stop Joe Biden's certification.
Trump urged supporters at a rally before the Capitol attack that “if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
Trump appointed three Supreme Court judges and Republicans six.Since Neil Gorsuch was a Colorado federal judge, the opinion mentioned his earlier ruling. That court ruled that the state had a legitimate interest in removing a Guyana-born naturalized U.S. citizen from the presidential vote.
Section 3 has seldom been used since it banned Confederates from returning to government posts after the Civil War. Two-sentence phrase: A two-thirds vote of Congress is needed to allow someone who promised to “support” the Constitution to serve after inciting insurrection. Legal scholars think Congress only used it in 1919 to block the House of Representatives election of a socialist who opposed WWI.
In 2022, a judge ousted a remote New Mexico county commissioner who was convicted of a misdemeanor for entering the Capitol on Jan. 6. Liberal groups tried to prevent Republican Reps. Madison Cawthorn and Marjorie Taylor Greene from running again after their conduct that day. After losing his 2022 primary, a judge kept Greene on the ballot, terminating Cawthorn's case.
Conservatives worry political parties may use Section 3 against opponents unexpectedly when Trump leaves office.Biden's administration says the president isn't involved in the disagreement.
Other Trump cases are approaching the high court besides his ballot eligibility. The judges dismissed special counsel Jack Smith's request to promptly decide on Trump's assertions that he is exempt from prosecution in a lawsuit accusing him with attempting to overturn the presidential election last month.
This matter might be revisited by a Washington appeals court.The appeal may invalidate hundreds of Capitol riot charges, including Trump's.