The U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision Monday on whether former President Donald Trump's name can appear on 2024 presidential primary ballots, but what will that mean for Illinois after a Cook County judge ruled last week that his name should be removed?
The Illinois ruling, which joined other attempts to remove the Republican former president's name because of violations of the “insurrection clause” in the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, hinged on the court's decision.
Here's a look at what it means for Illinois and other states:
What did the Supreme Court rule?
The justices ruled a day before the Super Tuesday primaries that states, without action from Congress first, cannot invoke a post-Civil War constitutional provision to keep presidential candidates from appearing on ballots.
Trump had been kicked off the ballots in Colorado, Maine and Illinois, but all three rulings were on hold awaiting the Supreme Court’s decision.
Conservative and liberal justices questioned the case against Trump. Their main concern was whether Congress must act before states can invoke the 14th Amendment. There also were questions about whether the president is covered by the provision.
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The case was decided by a court that includes three justices appointed by Trump when he was president. They have considered many Trump-related cases in recent years, declining to embrace his bogus claims of fraud in the 2020 election and refusing to shield tax records from Congress and prosecutors in New York.
The case is the court’s most direct involvement in a presidential election since Bush v. Gore, a decision delivered a quarter-century ago that effectively handed the 2000 election to Republican George W. Bush. And it’s just one of several cases involving Trump directly or that could affect his chances of becoming president again, including a case scheduled for arguments in late April about whether he can be criminally prosecuted on election interference charges, including his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. The timing of the high court's intervention has raised questions about whether Trump will be tried before the November election.
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What does the ruling mean for Illinois?
The Supreme Court outcome ends efforts in Colorado, Illinois, Maine and elsewhere to remove Trump, the front-runner for his party’s nomination, off the ballot.
What is Section 3?
The two-sentence provision of the 14th Amendment, intended to keep some Confederates from holding office again, says that those who violate oaths to support the Constitution are barred from various positions including congressional offices or serving as presidential electors. But it does not specifically mention the presidency.
What happened in Colorado?
Colorado’s Supreme Court concluded “that because President Trump is disqualified from holding the office of president under Section Three, it would be a wrongful act under the Election Code for the secretary to list President Trump as a candidate on the presidential primary ballot.”
Trump’s attorneys have disputed that characterization in appeals, saying that his actions fell well short of the 14th Amendment’s definition of insurrection. They cited tweets the president had sent calling for peace in Washington amid the chaos at the Capitol, but Porter dismissed those remarks as “plausible deniability” of potential crimes.
“This tweet could not possibly have had any other intended purposes besides to fan the flames. The hearing office determines that these calls to peace via social media, coming after an inflammatory tweet are the product of trying to give himself plausible deniability,” the ruling read.
She argued that the Capitol riot’s purpose was “the furtherance of the president’s plan to disrupt the electoral count taking place before the joint meeting of Congress,” and therefore qualified as insurrection under the Constitution.
The Supreme Court heard arguments in the Colorado case in early February, and according to legal experts cited by The New York Times and other publications, there was skepticism in the arguments made to keep the former president off the ballot.
The arguments in February were the first time the high court had heard a case involving Section 3.
What happened in Illinois?
A ruling, issued by Circuit Court Judge Tracie Porter last week, agreed with arguments made by Colorado’s Supreme Court when it kicked Trump off the ballot in that state.
The Illinois ruling repeatedly cited findings from the Colorado case, saying that Trump’s actions in the lead-up to, and on the day of Jan. 6, 2021, should be construed as insurrection, making him ineligible to hold the office of president.
Porter's ruling followed a determination by Illinois' State Board of Elections in January that Trump's name should remain on the ballot, but also recommended that a court make the ultimate decision in the case.
Porter said in her ruling that the order would be put on hold if the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling was “inconsistent” with hers.
Trump's attorneys filed two separate motions in the case, including an appeal of the ruling. They asked the Illinois Appellate Court to reverse Porter's decision and to reinstate the Board of Elections' ruling in the case.
What did experts say about the Supreme Court's decision?
Some election observers have warned that a ruling requiring congressional action to implement Section 3 could leave the door open to a renewed fight over trying to use the provision to disqualify Trump in the event he wins the election. In one scenario, a Democratic-controlled Congress could try to reject certifying Trump’s election on Jan. 6, 2025, under the clause.
The issue then could return to the court, possibly in the midst of a full-blown constitutional crisis.
The lawyers for Republican and independent voters who sued to remove Trump’s name from the Colorado ballot had argued that there is ample evidence that the events of Jan. 6 constituted an insurrection and that it was incited by Trump, who had exhorted a crowd of his supporters at a rally outside the White House to “fight like hell.” They said it would be absurd to apply Section 3 to everything but the presidency or that Trump is somehow exempt. And the provision needs no enabling legislation, they argued.
Trump’s lawyers mounted several arguments for why the amendment can’t be used to keep him off the ballot. They contended the Jan. 6 riot wasn’t an insurrection and, even if it was, Trump did not go to the Capitol or join the rioters. The wording of the amendment also excludes the presidency and candidates running for president, they said. Even if all those arguments failed, they said, Congress must pass legislation to reinvigorate Section 3.
