Should Donald Trump survive his legal troubles and challenges from other Republican presidential candidates in 2024, his chances of returning to the White House may be hampered by his inability to get on the ballot in several states.
“The third section of the 14th Amendment prohibits people who swore to defend the Constitution, but who subsequently took part in an insurrection against the United States, from holding state or federal office,” Date wrote.
The law was designed to “place the burden” on states that seceded, requiring them to “prevent those who have been active in insurgencies from seeking office” — which could include the former president, according to the report.
The law is “still on the books,” adding, “The law is still there. And it could be appealed to” according to Gerard Magliocca, a law professor at Indiana University.
“The six states affected by the 1868 law — North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, and Florida — together have 88 electoral votes or 33% of the total needed to win the presidency.
Trump won all of them in 2020 except for Georgia, which he lost by 12,000 votes,” Date wrote before adding, “The former president was impeached for inciting an insurrection by the House, but not enough Republicans in the Senate voted to convict him, arguing that they did not have the authority because Trump was no longer president. Had they done so, a simple majority vote could then have banned Trump from holding federal office for the rest of his life.”
“It would have been great if Congress had already taken care of this. We fully intend to pursue this type of challenge if Trump chooses to run,” Ron Fein, of Free Speech For People said.
“Before the 14th Amendment had been ratified, Congress passed a law in 1868 making enforcement of the insurrectionist ban in the proposed amendment a condition of six Southern states’ readmission to the Union. The remaining Confederate states were readmitted after the amendment had been ratified, and so the laws letting them back in did not contain that specific requirement,” the HuffPost report adds.
“Fein said that the 1868 law’s language does not so much create a different standard for office-holders in those six states as it does illustrate that lawmakers then — the same ones who passed the 14th Amendment — wanted all states to enforce its anti-insurrectionist restriction.”
