It comes as the justices are separately weighing a request from special counsel Jack Smith to take up and rule quickly on whether Trump can be prosecuted on charges he plotted to overturn the 2020 election results.
“It’s a political mess the Supreme Court may have a hard time avoiding,” said Michael Gerhardt, a University of North Carolina law professor. The Colorado Supreme Court ruling is the first time in history the provision has been used to try to prohibit someone from running for the presidency.
Trump’s lawyers plan to ask the Supreme Court to overturn a decision Tuesday barring him from Colorado’s ballot under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which prohibits anyone who swore an oath to support the Constitution and then “engaged in insurrection” against it from holding office.
