Originally Published: September 2, 2023 9:00 a.m.
It's a feature of the Trump era that his norm-breaking behavior is met by unprecedented responses.
He tried to strong-arm Ukraine into fabricating dirt on his political enemy, and was impeached. He, at the very least, inflamed his followers into trying to violently stop the certification of the 2020 election, and was impeached again. Thanks to the coup attempt, hush money payments to a porn star and his refusal to cough up government documents after he was ousted, he's been indicted four times.
Those on the vanguard of invoking the seldom-used Disqualification Clause of the 14th Amendment, under which Trump's role in Jan. 6 would preclude him from running for office again, acknowledge that what they're doing is unprecedented in the modern era. But so is a president attempting to foment an insurrection.
"It's Donald Trump's fault if some people end up not being able to vote for him," Gerard Magliocca, an Indiana University law professor who specializes in the Disqualification Clause, told TPM. "He took that right away from them by his misconduct."
In interviews with TPM, some of the outside groups leading the charge to enforce the Disqualifications Clause acknowledged the legal realities and complexities involved in disqualifying a major presidential candidate in a country where each state runs its own election and has its own disqualification process. But they also hew to the belief that Trump's attempt to stay in power against the will of the people not only should bar him from further office, but already does under the Constitution.
Their plans involve a mixture of public campaigning to apply pressure on the state-level secretaries of state and election boards who decide matters of disqualification. Accustomed to asking judges to rule on petitions involving the age or citizenship of local candidates, good government groups are now crafting bids to have these officials disqualify Trump.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and Free Speech for People (FSFP), among the groups most active on the Disqualification Clause, are tight-lipped about where they plan to file formal legal challenges to disqualify Trump, though FSFP sent letters this week asking officials in Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, New Hampshire and New Mexico to drop Trump from the ballot. That, in turn, has prompted some other states to start examining the process.
Previous Article
Share your views...
0 Respones to "Inside The Effort To Use The Disqualification Clause To Keep Trump Off The 2024 Ballot"
Post a Comment