Trump-appointed Justice Amy Coney Barrett says 9-0 ruling keeping ex-president on the ballot is a ‘message’ to America and urges Supreme Court to ‘turn the national temperature down – not up’

Judge Amy Coney Barrett issued an unusual concurring opinion with the Supreme Court’s 9-0 decision that keeps Donald Trump on the ballot in Colorado — and made a plea to “lower the national temperature” during a fierce election season.

Like a trio of liberal justices on the court, Barrett, a Trump appointee, decided that the majority had gone too far in his 20-page ruling that “states may not unilaterally disqualify Donald Trump from the ballot” and voted to overturn the decision. a Colorado court to overturn. conspicuous Trump.

She joined the overall decision but warned of “sharpness” in the court’s divisions — during an election season in which the Supreme Court is making momentous decisions on presidential immunity while lower courts are making scheduling decisions that will determine whether Trump faces trial confronted with jury verdicts. November elections.

That separated her from the three liberals in tone, even if not on a legal level, as the liberals wondered how to apply the law to an “oath-breaking insurrectionist.”

‘The majority’s choice of a different path leaves the remaining judges with the choice of how to respond. In my view, this is not the time to add to the disagreement with stridency,” Barrett wrote in her one-page opinion.

“The Court has resolved a politically charged issue in the volatile presidential election season. Particularly in these circumstances, the Court’s writings should lower, not raise, the national temperature. For present purposes, our disagreements are far less important than our unanimity: all nine justices agree on the outcome of this case. That is the message Americans need to take home,” she wrote.

Barrett, who was confirmed by the Senate just eight days before the 2020 election in a culmination of a process that infuriated Democrats, wrote that she agreed that states do not have the power to enforce Section 3 of the 14th Amendment , which excludes the language of people who participated in it. in rebellion against holding any ‘office’ in the US

“That principle is sufficient to resolve this case, and I would decide no more than that.” But she writes that the majority went too far by setting conditions that only Congress can advocate through legislation.

“The lawsuit was filed in state court by Colorado voters under state law. It does not require us to answer the complex question of whether federal law is the exclusive means by which Section 3 can be enforced,” she wrote.

In a twenty-page ruling, the court ruled that only Congress can decide whether or not Trump is eligible to run for office.

“The responsibility for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates rests with Congress, not the States,” the majority wrote.

The conservative-majority court’s decision means the Republican frontrunner’s name will appear on ballots in Colorado’s primary

Anti-Trump demonstrators protest outside the US Supreme Court before the court ruled on former US President Donald Trump’s eligibility to run for president in the 2024 election in Washington, DC, on February 8, 2024

The ruling removes a new obstacle for former President Donald Trump, who faced a series of legal battles on his path to the nomination.

“States may not unilaterally disqualify Donald Trump from voting,” the justices added as they reversed a decision by the Colorado Supreme Court. “The Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling is overturned.

“The terms of the amendment relate only to enforcement by Congress, which has the power to enforce the amendment through legislation under Article 5,” the majority said.

Although she issued her own separate opinion, Barrett’s opinion agreed with the court’s three liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

“While we agree that Colorado cannot enforce Section 3, we take issue with the majority’s attempt to use this case to define the limits of federal enforcement of that provision,” the liberal justices wrote.

The Liberals called out the court for lack of restraint.

“Today the Court deviates from that crucial principle and rules not only on this case, but also on challenges that may arise in the future. In this case, the Court must decide whether Colorado may bar a presidential candidate from the ballot on the grounds that he is an oath-breaking insurrectionist and thus disqualified from holding federal office under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment,” they wrote she.

“Allowing Colorado to do this, we agree, would create a chaotic state-by-state patchwork, contrary to our nation’s federalist principles.

Supreme Court Justices Amy Coney Barrett (left) and Sonia Sotomayor each joined in separate opinions supporting the court’s opinion that keeps Trump on the ballot in Colorado

Barrett gave her own one-page opinion

They complain that the decision “precludes judicial enforcement of that provision, as might happen if a party is prosecuted by an insurgent and raises a defense on that point.”

Harvard lawyer Lawrence Tribe, who supported the 14th Amendment, ripped Barrett’s reasoning in an online post.

“Judge Barrett told us what ‘message Americans should take home’ from today’s ruling that even if Trump’s role in the insurrection we narrowly survived disqualifies him under the Constitution from ever again office, only congressional legislation under Sec 5 of the 14th Amendment can implement that absolutely necessary prohibition,” he says wrote.

“The take-home message Barrett is telling us from that fiat is that we should just relax, because all nine justices agreed that Colorado went too far beyond what any state should have been able to do.”