Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump takes the stage during a rally at Norris Penrose Equestrian Center in Colorado Springs, October 18, 2016.
Rj Sangosti | Denver Post | Getty Images
A bunch of Colorado voters filed a lawsuit Wednesday to kick Donald Trump off the state’s ballot in 2024, citing a nascent legal theory that proposes the previous president is constitutionally barred from running for office.
The grievance hinges on the argument that then-President Trump engaged in an riot on Jan. 6, 2021, and is due to this fact disqualified from holding government office under the 14th Amendment.
“Trump tried to overthrow the outcomes of the 2020 election, resulting in a violent riot at america Capitol to stop the lawful transfer of power to his successor,” the plaintiffs wrote of their legal grievance in Colorado state court.
The third section of the 14th Amendment bars people from holding “any office” on the federal or state level in the event that they have “previously taken an oath” to support the U.S. Structure after which “engaged in riot or riot against the identical, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”
Ratified in 1866, the so-called Disqualification Clause was intended to stop leaders of the defeated Confederacy from running for public office after the war. The clause allows a person’s disqualification to be overruled with a two-thirds vote from the House and Senate.
Trump has claimed that the growing attention to the speculation, and legal actions stemming from it, are all a part of a broader conspiracy against him.
But a pair of constitutional scholars last month argued in an instructional paper that the clause disqualifies Trump, “and potentially many others, due to their participation within the attempted overthrow of the 2020 presidential election.”
The plaintiffs — six Colorado registered voters, 4 of whom are Republicans — alleged in the brand new grievance that Trump’s actions led to “a violent riot at america Capitol to stop the lawful transfer of power to his successor.”
The speculation also has some outspoken detractors, nevertheless. Law professor Jonathan Turley, who defended Trump during his first impeachment, called it “the last word Hail Mary pass” by Trump’s critics.
The legal interpretation getting used to try to maintain Trump from reclaiming power has rarely, if ever, been tested within the courts — a fact the plaintiffs within the Colorado suit acknowledge.
“If the very fabric of our democracy is to carry, we must make sure that the Structure is enforced and the identical individuals who attacked our democratic system not be put accountable for it,” said Noah Bookbinder, the president of the watchdog group CREW, the organization behind the suit.
“While it’s unprecedented to bring this kind of case against a former president, January sixth was an unprecedented attack that is precisely the sort of event the framers of the 14th Amendment wanted to construct protections in case of,” Bookbinder said. “You do not break the glass unless there’s an emergency.”
The lawsuit seeks a court order declaring Trump disqualified under the Structure and enjoining Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold from “taking any motion that will allow him to access the ballot.”
Trump himself has weighed in on the increasingly discussed constitutional debate.
“Just about all legal scholars have voiced opinions that the 14th Amendment has no legal basis or standing relative to the upcoming 2024 Presidential Election,” Trump asserted in a social media post Monday.
“Like Election Interference, it’s just one other ‘trick’ getting used by the Radical Left Communists, Marxists, and Fascists, to again steal an Election that their candidate, the WORST, MOST INCOMPETENT, & MOST CORRUPT President in U.S. history, is incapable of winning in a Free and Fair Election,” Trump wrote.