In a landmark decision on Monday, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that former President Donald Trump cannot be removed from the ballot in Colorado or any other state, dismissing a lawsuit that claimed he disqualified himself from office due to his actions on January 6, 2021. The court's repudiation of the insurrectionist ban set a historical precedent and stated that individual states do not have the power to remove a federal candidate from the ballot.

The ruling overturned a previous decision by Colorado's top court, which found Trump guilty of engaging in an insurrection through his remarks before the attack on the US Capitol. The state court had deemed this violation as grounds for making Trump ineligible to appear on the state's ballot. Consequently, both Maine and Illinois had also sought to remove Trump from the ballot. However, with the Supreme Court's decision, these efforts are expected to be halted.

In its unsigned majority opinion, the Supreme Court emphasized that while states have the authority to disqualify individuals from holding state office, they lack the constitutional power to enforce the insurrectionist ban for federal offices, particularly the presidency. The court's decision clearly establishes that Congress is responsible for enforcing this provision, not the states.

The impact of this ruling extends far beyond the specific controversy in Colorado. It mandates that any state attempting to remove Trump from the ballot would be exceeding its powers, effectively shutting down similar "insurrectionist" lawsuits across the country. The decision is therefore considered a significant victory for Trump, as it eliminates a legal theory that has posed a threat to his potential second term.

Although the Supreme Court's ruling curtails state enforcement of the insurrectionist ban, it also appears to make federal-level enforcement more challenging. This distinction led to a fracture among the justices, with four members - Amy Coney Barrett, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson - expressing dissent. While Barrett is a conservative Trump nominee, the other three justices belong to the liberal wing of the court. Their concurrence argued that the majority went too far by requiring Congress to pass legislation for federal enforcement, thus shielding alleged insurrectionists holding federal office from future challenges.

Importantly, the Supreme Court's opinion did not directly address the question of whether Trump's actions on January 6 qualified as an "insurrection." Instead, the court bypassed this issue, as experts had predicted, and focused on deciding the ballot case in a narrow manner. Consequently, Trump was not exonerated by the court's decision, according to the liberal watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

Justice Barrett, in her one-page concurrence, urged the public to focus on the fact that all nine justices agreed on the outcome of the case instead of amplifying disagreements. She emphasized the need to maintain a calm and unified approach during such politically charged times.

The Supreme Court's ruling in the Colorado dispute is one of several high-profile Trump-related cases before the court this term. This inclusion likely contributed to the court's lukewarm public approval rating of just 40%, as indicated by a recent poll conducted when the case was heard.

In conclusion, the Supreme Court's historic ruling clarifies that states lack the power to remove a federal candidate, especially a president, from the ballot based on the insurrectionist ban. This decision is expected to halt efforts to remove Trump from the ballot in various states and provides a significant victory for the former president. Nevertheless, the ruling also complicates both state and federal enforcement of the insurrectionist ban, leading to a divided opinion among the justices.