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Congressional_______
R* fesearch Service
Disqualification of a Candidate for the
Presidency, Part II: Examining Section 3 of the
Fourteenth Amendment as It Applies to Ballot
Access
Updated April 4, 2024
On March 4, 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court in Trump v. Anderson issued a per curiam opinion that
unanimously held that the Colorado Supreme Court erred in ordering former President Trump excluded
from the 2024 presidential primary ballot and that Congress, not the states, is responsible for enforcing
Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment (Section 3) against federal candidates and officeholders. The
Court held that Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment empowers Congress to determine who
Section 3 applies to for purposes of federal officeholders and candidates, as Section 5 enables Congress to
pass appropriate legislation to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment. As a result of the Supreme Court's
ruling, states do not have the authority under Section 3 to exclude candidates for federal offices from
election ballots. The Court's opinion did not rule on several issues addressed by the Colorado Supreme
Court, including whether, under Section 3, the President is an officer of the United States who had
previously taken an oath ... to support the Constitution, whether the political question doctrine
precludes judicial review, and what actions constitute insurrection under the Fourteenth Amendment.
In numerous lawsuits and administrative actions across the country, challengers had sought to prevent
former President Trump from appearing on state ballots. Specifically, the lawsuits, filed in both state and
federal courts, requested that various secretaries of state exclude the former President from the states'
ballots for the 2024 presidential primary and general elections. The challengers alleged that Mr. Trump's
efforts to impede the congressional certification of the 2020 electoral college vote by, among other things,
urging his supporters to march to the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, amounted to engag[ing] in
insurrection within the meaning of Section 3. The challengers contended that the former President was
therefore disqualified as a candidate for the presidency.
Many of the lawsuits challenging former President Trump's ability to be placed on state ballots were
dismissed by courts on jurisdictional grounds without reaching the merits of the constitutional claims. On
December 19, 2023, the Colorado Supreme Court became the first court to hold former President Trump
ineligible to appear on the ballot, finding that he was constitutionally disqualified from holding the office
Congressional Research Service
https://crsreports.congress.gov
LSB11096
CRS Legal Sidebar
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