Few critical US democratic institutions have escaped unsullied from a tangle with Donald Trump.
Now, the US Supreme Court faces its greatest test so far from the former president.
On Thursday, the nine justices will hear a case with critical implications for the 2024 election – over the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to remove Trump from the ballot over the 14th Amendment’s “insurrectionist” clause. By early next week, the Supreme Court may also be considering whether to hear another Trump appeal, against a lower court decision to reject his demand for absolute presidential immunity over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election following his false claims of voter fraud.
The pair of hugely significant and politically charged cases could thrust the justices deeper into a presidential election than at any time since the court decided the disputed 2000 election in favor of then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush over then-Vice President Al Gore. The historic reverberations from its new venture into campaign politics may echo even longer than the case that ended a bitter post-election period a quarter of a century ago. And given Trump’s habitual refusal to accept the rules and results of elections, no one would be surprised if the court is dragged deeper into the partisan fray before or after November’s presidential election, presuming Trump becomes the Republican nominee.
The idea that the Supreme Court is above politics has long been rather quaint given generations of sensitive decisions on politicized issues, including slavery, voting rights, civil rights, desegregation, interracial and same-sex marriage, health care and recently abortion. But no modern president has gone further than Trump in daring to shatter the notion that judges are obligated to pursue a higher calling than partisan politics – preserving the…
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