Supreme Court says Trump can stay on 2024 ballots but ignores ‘insurrection’ role

The US Supreme Court has determined that Donald Trump can remain on 2024 presidential election ballots across the country, marking a reversal of a landmark Colorado court decision that found him constitutionally ineligible because of his actions on January 6.

But the justices ignored the question at the heart of the case, which revolves around whether then-President Trump should be disqualified from holding office after he “engaged in insurrection” by fuelling a mob that stormed the US Capitol

The ruling did not include any discussion on the central premise of the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision, as well as decisions from officials in Illinois and Maine. The justices instead determined that only Congress – not states – has the authority to disqualify candidates for federal office.

A decision was unanimous, but the court’s three liberal justices sharply disagreed that only Congress can act, writing that the court’s conservative majority were attemptong “to insulate all alleged insurrectionists from future challenges to their holding federal office.”

“The Court has settled a politically charged issue in the volatile season of a Presidential election,” the liberal justices wrote in a concurring opinion. “Writings on the Court should turn the national temperature down, not up. For present purposes, our differences are far less important than our unanimity: All nine Justices agree on the outcome of this case. That is the message Americans should take home.”

The decision arrived on a day that the former president was initially scheduled to be tried on criminal charges stemming from his attempts to overturn 2020 results, culminating in his failure to stop the mob on January 6. Last week, the Supreme Court’s decision to hear