Illinois and Massachusetts Voters Join Effort to Boot Trump Off State Ballots
Washington DC USA - June 24 2023: Former President Donald Trump speaks at the Faith and Freedom Coalition's annual conference at the Washington Hilton in Washington DC.
Photo by Aaron Schwartz
The following article was originally published by Jessica Corbett from COMMONDREAMS. It was accessed through truthout‘s publication from January 5, 2024.
A growing number of scholars, lawyers, advocacy groups and voters argue Trump is disqualified under the 14th Amendment.
Just two days away from the anniversary of the January 6, 2021 insurrection, voters in Illinois and Massachusetts on Thursday joined the nationwide effort to boot former Republican U.S. President Donald Trump off state ballots on constitutional grounds.
Since Trump’s attempts to overturn his 2020 loss to Democratic President Joe Biden culminated in his supporters attacking the U.S. Capitol three years ago, a growing number of scholars, lawyers, advocacy groups, and voters have argued that the Republican is disqualified from holding office again under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The amendment bars anyone who has taken an oath to the Constitution and then engaged in “insurrection or rebellion” from holding “any office, civil or military.” Despite that, and his various criminal cases — including two related to 2020 election interference — Trump is the Republican front-runner to challenge Biden, who is seeking reelection this year.
“Donald Trump violated his oath of office and incited a violent insurrection that attacked the U.S. Capitol, threatened the assassination of the vice president and congressional leaders, and disrupted the peaceful transfer of power for the first time in our nation’s history,” Free Speech for People (FSFP) legal director Ron Fein saidin a statement.
“Our predecessors understood that oath-breaking insurrectionists will do it again, and worse, if allowed back into power, so they enacted the insurrectionist disqualification clause to protect the republic from people like Trump,” he added. “Trump is legally barred from the ballot.”
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