Former President Donald Trump

Staff article-By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor

WASHINGTON, D.C.- Former President Donald Trump can remain on the Colorado ballot, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday in a unanimous and unprecedented decision that has a broad reaching effect for other states.

Congress and not the states has the power to keep a federal candidate off a state presidential ballot by framing legislation under the anti-insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment, the court ruled in reversing the decision by the Colorado Supreme Court.

"We conclude that states may disqualify persons holding or attempting to hold state office," the court's opinion says. "But states have no power under the Constitution to enforce Sections 3 with respect to federal offices, especially the presidency."

The ruling, which is binding on all states, is a win for the GOP and the  Trump campaign as Super Tuesday, where some 16 states have primary elections,  is just a day away and the November presidential election nears.

Ohio's primary election is March 19. Trump won Ohio in 2016 and in 2020, and he went on to win the presidency in 2016 over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, but lost it to President Biden in 2020.

Trump had been booted from the Colorado, Maine and Illinois ballots with state officials arguing in the three states that trended Democratic in the last several presidential elections that he engaged in insurrection in his efforts to overturn the 2020 election that President Joe Biden won and that such behavior disqualify's him from seeking the presidency for a third time. Multiple other states were also pushing to keep the former president off their respective 2024 ballots. The Colorado, Maine and Illinois cases were on hold pending the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The case began at the state court level in Colorado and made its way all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, an indication, say sources, that the 2024 presidential race will be highly heated in the least.

And while the Supreme Court's celebrated ruling keeps Trump on the ballot it does not address whether or not he is an insurrectionist.

A state Colorado court ruled that Trump engaged in insurrection via the Jan 6 Capitol riot, which disqualify's him from the state primary ballot, and the state Supreme Court of Colorado ultimately agreed.

In reversing the Colorado Supreme Court's ruling this week the U.S. Supreme Court’s nine justices, via Monday's decision, agreed with the former president that a state cannot remove a federal candidate from its ballot under the 14th Amendment's insurrection ban. That posture, say pundits, strays from the point the Colorado courts tried to forcefully make by saying Trump was in no way qualified to be on the state ballot because of his role in the Jan 6 Capitol riot.

"A majority of the court holds that President Trump is disqualified from holding the office of President under Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution," the Colorado Supreme Court's since reversed ruling says. "Because he is disqualified, it would be a wrongful act under the Election Code for the Colorado Secretary of State to list him as a candidate on the presidential primary ballot.”

Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for Trump's campaign, blasted the Colorado ruling, saying Trump has never been charged with insurrection relative to the Jan 6 Capitol riot, much less convicted.

“Unsurprisingly, the all-Democrat appointed Colorado Supreme Court has ruled against President Trump, supporting a Soros-funded, left-wing group’s scheme to interfere in an election on behalf of crooked Joe Biden by removing President Trump’s name from the ballot and eliminating the rights of Colorado voters to vote for the candidate of their choice," Cheung said in a statement after the Colorado Supreme Court ruling and before the appeal was heard by the nation's top court.

He added then that "we have full confidence that the U.S. Supreme Court will quickly rule in our favor and finally put an end to these un-American lawsuits." And that optimism proved true.

The Colorado Republican Party had also joined in, filing an appeal and asking the US Supreme Court to hear the case and reverse the Colorado Supreme Court decision.

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview. CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.