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Donald Trump’s Candidacy Secured in Unanimous Supreme Court Ruling

AFP — Tue, 05 Mar 2024 09:04:40 +0000

The US Supreme Court on Monday removed a potential hurdle to Donald Trump’s bid to recapture the White House, unanimously dismissing a state court ruling that could have barred him from the ballot for engaging in insurrection.

The high-stakes ruling in favor of the former president came on the eve of the Super Tuesday primaries that are expected to cement Trump’s march toward the Republican nomination to take on President Joe Biden in November.

It was the most consequential election case heard by the court since it halted the Florida vote recount in 2000 with Republican George W. Bush narrowly leading Democrat Al Gore.

The question before the nine justices was whether Trump was ineligible to appear on the Republican presidential primary ballot in Colorado because he engaged in an insurrection — the January 6, 2021 assault on the US Capitol by his supporters.

In a 9-0 decision, the conservative-dominated court said “the judgment of the Colorado Supreme Court… cannot stand,” meaning 77-year-old Trump, the Republican White House frontrunner, can appear on the state’s primary ballot.

“All nine Members of the Court agree with that result,” they added.

The case stemmed from a ruling in December by the state Supreme Court in Colorado, one of the 15 states and territories voting on Super Tuesday.

The court, citing the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, ruled that Trump should be kicked off the ballot because of his role in the January 6 attack on Congress, when a mob tried to halt certification of Biden’s 2020 election victory.

Section 3 of the 14th Amendment bars anyone from holding public office if they engaged in “insurrection or rebellion” after once pledging to support and defend the Constitution.

But during two hours of arguments last month, both conservative and liberal justices on the US Supreme Court expressed concern about having individual states decide which candidates can be on the presidential ballot this November.

On Monday, the top court ruled that “responsibility for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates rests with Congress and not the States.”

Multiple additional cases

The 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868 after the Civil War, was aimed at preventing supporters of the slave-holding breakaway Confederacy from being elected to Congress or from holding federal positions.

The Supreme Court, which includes three justices nominated by Trump, has historically been loath to get involved in political questions, but it is taking center stage in this year’s White House race.

Besides the Colorado case, the Supreme Court has also agreed to hear Trump’s claim that he is immune from criminal prosecution as a former president and cannot be tried on separate charges of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election.

Trump was impeached by the Democratic-majority House of Representatives for inciting an insurrection but was acquitted thanks to Republican support in the Senate.

He is also scheduled to go on trial in New York on March 25 on charges of covering up hush money payments to a porn star ahead of the 2016 election.

In yet another case, Trump faces federal charges in Florida of refusing to give up top secret documents after leaving the White House.

During oral arguments in the Colorado case, Jonathan Mitchell, a former solicitor general of Texas representing Trump, urged the court to reverse the Colorado court’s decision, saying it would “take away the votes of potentially tens of millions of Americans.”

Chief Justice John Roberts, a conservative, warned that upholding the state court ruling could lead to “disqualification proceedings on the other side.”

“I would expect that a goodly number of states will say ‘Whoever the Democratic candidate is, you’re off the ballot,’” Roberts said.

The post Donald Trump’s Candidacy Secured in Unanimous Supreme Court Ruling first appeared on MegaIcon Magazine.

The post Donald Trump’s Candidacy Secured in Unanimous Supreme Court Ruling appeared first on MegaIcon Magazine.

US Supreme Court to weigh in on abortion pill ban

Mega Icon — Wed, 19 Apr 2023 19:34:44 +0000

The US Supreme Court was poised Wednesday to wade into the divisive battle over the abortion drug mifepristone with a ruling on tough new court-ordered restrictions on the widely used pill.

The nation’s highest court has until midnight Eastern Time (0400 GMT Thursday) to decide how it will handle the most significant abortion case since it tossed out the constitutional right to the procedure last year.

The panel can rule in any number of ways, and abortion rights and anti-abortion activists — as well as millions of Americans — are on tenterhooks waiting to see how the conservative-dominated court proceeds in the latest case involving women’s reproductive rights.

The case stems from a ruling this month by a US District Court judge in Texas that would have banned mifepristone, which was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2000 and accounts for more than half of all abortions in the United States.

An appeals court blocked a ban on the pill, but imposed tough restrictions on access, after which the baton was handed to the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court, where conservatives wield a 6-3 majority, on Friday temporarily stayed the lower court rulings as it weighs what to do next.

The Supreme Court could decide to freeze the lower court rulings pending an appeal from the Justice Department and the mifepristone manufacturer Danco Laboratories.

It could also allow the rulings restricting access to the abortion pill to take effect while the appeals play out at the appellate level.

The court could also decide to hear arguments in the case itself on an expedited basis.

Complicating the case even further is a ruling by a separate federal court in Washington state that said access to mifepristone should be maintained.

Since the Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling that enshrined the constitutional right to abortion for half a century, 13 states have banned abortion and it has been severely restricted in others.

– ‘Clear choice’ –

Democratic Representative Katherine Clark said Wednesday that the court faces a “clear choice.”

“Uphold legal and scientific fact or capitulate to MAGA extremism,” Clark said in a reference to former Republican president Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan.

“This case marks just the latest assault in the MAGA crusade on reproductive freedom,” Clark told reporters. “Republicans have one goal — a nationwide abortion ban.”

Opposition to the legal attack on the abortion pill is being spearheaded by the Justice Department, which argued that the initial conservative federal judge’s ruling was based on a “deeply misguided assessment” of the pill’s safety.

Mifepristone is one component of a two-drug regimen that can be used through the first 10 weeks of pregnancy. It has a long safety record, and the FDA estimates 5.6 million Americans have used it to terminate pregnancies since it was approved.

The appellate court, while striking down the ban on mifepristone, restricted its use to seven weeks of pregnancy, down from 10, and prohibited distribution by mail.

In a filing to the court on Tuesday, the anti-abortion coalition that first brought the case against the FDA repeated their controversial claims that the drug was unsafe.

The coalition said the FDA and the distributor of mifepristone had “brazenly flouted the law and applicable regulations … and continually placed politics above women’s health.”

Polls repeatedly show a clear majority of Americans support continued access to safe abortion, even as conservative groups push to limit the procedure — or ban it outright.

The post US Supreme Court to weigh in on abortion pill ban first appeared on MegaIcon Magazine.

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