American voters may soon know whether former President Donald Trump can be kept off the ballot in this year's presidential election.
when? As soon as today, according to an election law expert contacted by MarketWatch. The Supreme Court heard arguments on whether the former president's role in the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol makes him ineligible for the presidency.
“We may get a fairly quick decision, especially if the justices plan to say Trump can be disqualified by a state,” said Richard Hasen, who teaches law at the University of California, California.
The court appeared broadly skeptical of efforts to oust Trump from the 2024 ballot, the Associated Press reported, as the justices today took issue for the first time with a constitutional provision adopted after the Civil War to bar former officeholders who “engaged in insurrection” from returning. To power.
The decision “could come at any time in between [today] And the end of June in theory,” Hasen told MarketWatch via email, noting that the court has designated a section for briefing and urgent arguments.
Read now: Can Trump be on the ballot? It is the biggest election test for the Supreme Court since Bush v. Gore.
The Colorado Supreme Court decided that Trump – the front-runner to win the Republican Party's presidential nomination – incited the riot in the nation's capital, and that he is ineligible to serve as president again as a result, and should not be on the ballot for the state's March 5 primary.
Both conservative and liberal justices raised questions during debates about whether Trump could be disqualified from becoming president again because of his efforts to undo his 2020 election loss.
Trump's lawyers argued that he did not participate in or direct any attack on the Capitol.
The case being heard today is the Supreme Court's most straightforward case in a presidential election since Bush v. Gore in 2000. The case was decided after a single day of oral arguments, and effectively handed that year's election to Republican George W. Bush.
The Associated Press contributed
