We don’t know yet how jurists in Colorado, Minnesota and other states will rule on Donald Trump’s ballot eligibility. But it’s becoming ever clearer that the U.S. Supreme Court will likely have the final word, stemming from one or more of these cases making its way to Washington — and whatever that word is, it’s needed soon.
Some of the latest evidence of that came Thursday in Minnesota, during arguments at the state’s Supreme Court. It was there that a lawyer raised the prospect of different states deciding the 14th Amendment issue differently. The state’s chief justice, Natalie Hudson, said that’s why we have a U.S. Supreme Court.
Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, who’s at the center of the case proceeding in her state, also noted that possibility of different outcomes in an interview with me last week.
Voters in cases across the country have been citing the U.S. Constitution’s insurrectionist ban to try and keep Trump off the presidential ballot.
Voters in cases across the country have been citing the U.S. Constitution’s insurrectionist ban to try and keep Trump off the presidential ballot.
And though the U.S. Supreme Court largely has discretion over which cases it chooses to take up, the court likely would resolve any split among the states on this crucial subject. We’ll need to see when the first rulings come in (in addition to what they say) to gauge which has the best shot of being heard by the justices. J. Michael Luttig, the conservative retired federal judge who’s been pressing the argument that Trump is disqualified, told me Thursday that the justices will have to resolve the issue. Whether they agree with Luttig on the substance of the issue or not, with cases progressing across the country as balloting deadlines approach for the 2024 primaries, the high court should settle it at the earliest opportunity. Subscribe to the Deadline: Legal Blog newsletter for weekly updates on the top legal stories, including news from the Supreme Court, the Donald Trump cases and more.
Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro," a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
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