A multi-pronged effort to keep Donald Trump off the 2024 presidential ballot as an insurrectionist resumes in earnest, beginning with a court case in Colorado on Monday, the first of two states that will hear legal arguments this week.
Those seeking to have the former president ruled ineligible are relying on a civil war-era provision of the 14th amendment to the US constitution that states no person can hold public office if they “have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof”.
They argue that Trump’s incitement of the deadly 6 January attack on the US Capitol, in which his supporters attempted to block Congress certifying Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory, perfectly encapsulates the clause that has yet to be seriously tested in a courtroom.
In Denver on Monday, and in Minnesota’s supreme court on Thursday, hearings will commence in cases that could ultimately end up in the US supreme court, regardless of which side wins in the lower court. The rulings are likely to be swiftly appealed, dragging the cases out with next year’s general election only 12 months away.
“We’ve had hearings with presidential candidates debating their eligibility before – Barack Obama, Ted Cruz, John McCain,” said Derek Muller, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame, listing candidates challenged on whether they met the constitutional requirement of being a “natural-born citizen”.
But the arguments against Trump, he said, rely on an obscure clause of the constitution with an “incendiary” bar against insurrection. “Those legal questions are very heavy ones,” he said, noting that even if they are seen as long shots, they raise important issues and have a plausible legal path to success.
Among those who support the argument for Trump’s removal from the ballot are the Virginia senator Tim Kaine, Hillary Clinton’s 2016 running mate, who told ABC last month that the “language is specific” in the 14th amendment clause.
“In my view, the attack on the Capitol that day was designed for a particular purpose at a particular moment and that was to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power as is laid out in the constitution,” he said.
“So I think there is a powerful argument to be made.”
Dozens of cases citing the amendment have been filed in recent months, but the ones in Colorado and Minnesota seem the most important, according to legal experts. They were filed by two liberal groups with significant resources, and in states with a clear, swift process for challenges to candidates’ ballot qualifications.
That means the Colorado and Minnesota cases are taking a more legally sound route to get courts to force election officials to disqualify Trump, in contrast to other lawsuits that seek a sweeping ruling from federal judges that Trump is no longer eligible for the presidency.
The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew) watchdog group filed the Colorado lawsuit. “By instigating this unprecedented assault on the American constitutional order, Trump violated his oath and disqualified himself under the 14th Amendment from holding public office, including the office of the president,” its filing states.
Trump’s lawyers say the provision has not been used in 150 years, and the plaintiffs are interpreting it incorrectly. They contend it was never meant to apply to the office of president, which is not mentioned in the text, unlike “senator or representative in Congress” and “elector of president and vice-president”.
They also insist Trump never “engaged in insurrection” and was simply exercising his free speech rights to warn about election results he did not believe were legitimate.
The then president was impeached for a historic second time in 2021 for inciting the attack on the Capitol, though he was acquitted by the US Senate.
Trump has been predictably dismissive. “This is like a banana republic,” he told the conservative radio host Dan Bongino last month. “And what they’re doing is, it’s called election interference. Now the 14th amendment is just a continuation of that. It’s nonsense.”
The arguments in Colorado could feature testimony from witnesses to the 6 January 2021 attack, and other moves by Trump to overturn his 2020 election defeat. He is already facing charges in a federal case in Washington DC and a state case being heard in Fulton county, Georgia, over those efforts.
Associated Press contributed reporting
Source: Elections - theguardian.com
