Monday was another embarrassing day for the Colorado Supreme Court, as higher-ranking judges reversed them on shenanigans that alarmed the free world. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 9-0, as most predicted, to reverse the state court’s attempt to censor former President Donald Trump from today’s primary ballot.

The U.S. Supreme Court reversed the state’s ruling because no state has authority to unilaterally terminate a candidate for nationwide federal office. This was obvious to anyone with the most basic understanding of the U.S. Constitution.

Activists on the state court, all appointed by Democratic governors, tried to get clever by twisting the intent of Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment.

“It was designed to help ensure an enduring Union by preventing former Confederates from returning to power in the aftermath of the Civil War,” explained the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in “Donald J. Trump v. Norma Anderson.”

The ruling explains how only Congress — not a state court — can enforce Section 3. To say otherwise would reverse the intent of the Fourteenth Amendment, which was ratified to reduce state authority in federal matters.

Stay up to speed: Sign up for daily opinion in your inbox Monday-Friday

It is possible members of the state court’s majority don’t remember or understand simple matters of constitutional law. Maybe they know the law but don’t like it, causing them to act like a quasi-micro legislature that creates laws.

Either way, we have a state court that needs correction from on high.

This is the same state court that said governments must deny funding of scholarships based on a private school’s religious affiliation — forget that pesky First Amendment. That ruling looked silly after the federal court ruled in Trinity Lutheran v. Comer, 2017; Espinoza v. Montana, 2020; and Carson v. Makin, 2022.

The Trump case and other state rulings expose our court’s troubling propensity to judge on political ideology, rather than the merits of laws established by our country’s founders.

The higher and more serious court resisted conflating politics and law. The 9-0 ruling included enthusiastic support from left-leaning justices who likely don’t want Trump in the White House again.

“States cannot use their control over the ballot to ‘undermine the National Government,’” explains a concurring opinion written by Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

And: “To allow Colorado to take a presidential candidate off the ballot under Section 3 would imperil the Framers’ vision of ‘a Federal Government directly responsible to the people.’”

And: “That a handful of officials in a few States could decide the Nation’s next President would be especially surprising with respect to Section 3. The Reconstruction Amendments ‘were specifically designed as an expansion of federal power and an intrusion on state sovereignty.’”

Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s concurrence emphasized the non-political, strictly legal basis for the ruling.

“All nine Justices agree on the outcome of this case. That is the message Americans should take home,” Barrett wrote.

The ruling favored governance of, by and for the people — to benefit all political factions.

Extreme Democrats control every component of Colorado’s political establishment. They also control the state Supreme Court, with 100% of the seven justices appointed by Democrats. The court should serve as an arbiter of justice, not a Star Chamber to help favored politicians and causes.

Colorado Springs Gazette Editorial Board