Per Curiam

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543, pio@supremecourt.gov, of any typographical or other formal errors.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES _________________

No. 23–719 _________________

DONALD J. TRUMP, PETITIONER v. NORMA ANDERSON, ET AL. ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF COLORADO [March 4, 2024]

PER CURIAM. A group of Colorado voters contends that Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution prohibits for- mer President Donald J. Trump, who seeks the Presidential nomination of the Republican Party in this year’s election, from becoming President again. The Colorado Supreme Court agreed with that contention. It ordered the Colorado secretary of state to exclude the former President from the Republican primary ballot in the State and to disregard any write-in votes that Colorado voters might cast for him. Former President Trump challenges that decision on sev- eral grounds. Because the Constitution makes Congress, rather than the States, responsible for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates, we reverse. I Last September, about six months before the March 5, 2024, Colorado primary election, four Republican and two unaffiliated Colorado voters filed a petition against former President Trump and Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold in Colorado state court. These voters—whom we refer to as the respondents—contend that after former 2 TRUMP v. ANDERSON

Per Curiam President Trump’s defeat in the 2020 Presidential election, he disrupted the peaceful transfer of power by intentionally organizing and inciting the crowd that breached the Capitol as Congress met to certify the election results on January 6, 2021. One consequence of those actions, the respondents maintain, is that former President Trump is constitution- ally ineligible to serve as President again. Their theory turns on Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amend- ment. Section 3 provides: “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Con- gress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State leg- islature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.” According to the respondents, Section 3 applies to the for- mer President because after taking the Presidential oath in 2017, he intentionally incited the breaching of the Capitol on January 6 in order to retain power. They claim that he is therefore not a qualified candidate, and that as a result, the Colorado secretary of state may not place him on the primary ballot. See Colo. Rev. Stat. §§1–1–113(1), 1–4– 1101(1), 1–4–1201, 1–4–1203(2)(a), 1–4–1204 (2023). After a five-day trial, the state District Court found that former President Trump had “engaged in insurrection” within the meaning of Section 3, but nonetheless denied the respondents’ petition. The court held that Section 3 did not apply because the Presidency, which Section 3 does not mention by name, is not an “office . . . under the United Ci