- cross-posted to:
- politics@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- politics@beehaw.org
Here’s where we stand (pieced together) on all of the state cases trying to get him off the ballot: https://sh.itjust.works/post/11569127
This is Castro from the NPR link: Nine states have active federal lawsuits brought by John Anthony Castro, a tax attorney and longshot Republican presidential candidate who filed challenges in more than two dozen states seeking to block Trump from the ballot under the 14th Amendment. In October, the Supreme Court declined to hear Castro’s case. Afterward, judges in three states dismissed his lawsuits, and Castro voluntarily withdrew his cases in several others.
⚪ Alaska - lawsuit filed by Castro and pending - https://www.npr.org/2023/12/21/1220769191/colorado-trump-candidacy-fourteenth-amendment-insurrection
❌ Arizona- case dismissed https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/federal-judge-rejects-bid-keep-trump-ballot-arizona-rcna128239
⚪ California - a call to the secretary of state, but unlikely. Also, Castro withdrew challenge - https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/secretary-of-state-downplays-call-for-removal-of-trump-from-california-ballot/ar-AA1lWNv6
✔️ Colorado - Trump ruled to be not on ballot - Won by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). Also, Castro withdrew challenge https://www.npr.org/2023/12/21/1220769191/colorado-trump-candidacy-fourteenth-amendment-insurrection
❌ Connecticut - Castro withdrew challenge https://www.npr.org/2023/12/21/1220769191/colorado-trump-candidacy-fourteenth-amendment-insurrection
❌ Delaware - Castro withdrew challenge https://www.npr.org/2023/12/21/1220769191/colorado-trump-candidacy-fourteenth-amendment-insurrection
❌ Florida - dismissed & US supreme court refused to take it up- https://www.npr.org/2023/12/21/1220769191/colorado-trump-candidacy-fourteenth-amendment-insurrection
❌ Idaho - Castro withdrew challenge https://www.npr.org/2023/12/21/1220769191/colorado-trump-candidacy-fourteenth-amendment-insurrection
❌ Kansas - Castro withdrew challenge https://www.npr.org/2023/12/21/1220769191/colorado-trump-candidacy-fourteenth-amendment-insurrection
✔️ Maine - decided by secretary of state -https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/28/politics/trump-maine-14th-amendment-ballot/index.html Previous rulings https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/22/us/maine-trump-ballot.html Also, Castro withdrew challenge https://www.npr.org/2023/12/21/1220769191/colorado-trump-candidacy-fourteenth-amendment-insurrection
❌ Massachusetts - Castro withdrew challenge https://www.npr.org/2023/12/21/1220769191/colorado-trump-candidacy-fourteenth-amendment-insurrection
❌ Michigan - State supreme court denied to look at it: https://apnews.com/article/trump-insurrection-14th-amendment-ballot-michigan-colorado-b5a5d9ffa75efa63ab4780b04329e2a2 - brought by Free Speech for Free People - https://www.businessinsider.com/michigan-could-remove-trump-from-ballot-next-2023-12?op=1
⚪ Minnesota - state supreme court ruled the republican party can decide who they want on the primary ballot, but left the case open for another filing for the main ballot- brought by Free Speech for Free People, says they will bring more suits in the future- https://www.npr.org/2023/12/21/1220769191/colorado-trump-candidacy-fourteenth-amendment-insurrection
❌ Montana - Castro withdrew challenge https://www.npr.org/2023/12/21/1220769191/colorado-trump-candidacy-fourteenth-amendment-insurrection
⚪ Nevada - Lawsuit filed by castro
⚪ New Mexico - pending Castro filed suit https://www.lawfaremedia.org/current-projects/the-trump-trials/section-3-litigation-tracker
⚪ New Jersey - pending Bellochio filed suit https://www.lawfaremedia.org/current-projects/the-trump-trials/section-3-litigation-tracker
⚪ New York - pending 2, Castro & Dewald filed suit https://www.lawfaremedia.org/current-projects/the-trump-trials/section-3-litigation-tracker
❌ North Carolina - Castro withdrew challenge https://www.npr.org/2023/12/21/1220769191/colorado-trump-candidacy-fourteenth-amendment-insurrection
❌ Oklahoma - Castro withdrew challenge https://www.npr.org/2023/12/21/1220769191/colorado-trump-candidacy-fourteenth-amendment-insurrection
⚪ Oregon - going to the state supreme court - Free Speech for Free People brought suit - https://www.npr.org/2023/12/21/1220769191/colorado-trump-candidacy-fourteenth-amendment-insurrection
❌ Pennsylvania - Castro withdrew challenge https://www.npr.org/2023/12/21/1220769191/colorado-trump-candidacy-fourteenth-amendment-insurrection
❌ Rhode Island - dismissed - https://www.tampafp.com/federal-judge-in-rhode-island-tosses-trump-2024/
⚪ Texas - pending Castro filed suit https://www.lawfaremedia.org/current-projects/the-trump-trials/section-3-litigation-tracker
❌ Utah - Castro withdrew challenge https://www.npr.org/2023/12/21/1220769191/colorado-trump-candidacy-fourteenth-amendment-insurrection
⚪ Vermont - pending Castro filed suit https://www.lawfaremedia.org/current-projects/the-trump-trials/section-3-litigation-tracker
⚪ Virginia - filed by Roy L. Perry-Bey of Hampton https://www.wric.com/news/virginia-news/motion-filed-to-remove-trump-from-virginia-ballots/
⚪ West Virginia - pending Castro filed suit https://www.lawfaremedia.org/current-projects/the-trump-trials/section-3-litigation-tracker
⚪ Wisconsin - pending Castro filed suit https://www.lawfaremedia.org/current-projects/the-trump-trials/section-3-litigation-tracker
⚪ Wyoming - pending Newcomb v Gray (?) https://www.lawfaremedia.org/current-projects/the-trump-trials/section-3-litigation-tracker
This is such a thorough post. I really appreciate that you took the time to compile this.
Except they left out Hawai‘i
they’re still angry about Obama.
Going to get down voted for this, but I honestly think Minnesota has the right of it. The GOP is a private entity and can run whoever they want in their primaries.
14A has nothing to say about how parties select their candidates, and if they want to select someone who isn’t qualified that’s their problem.
Also, if Trump fails to win the GOP nomination, someone really needs to seed the idea that they should all do write in votes for Trump instead of whoever the GOP would nominate instead. Show the GOP they shouldn’t back down and show the Dems they can’t stop the Trump Train. Also, you know, splitting the GOP vote to make an easier Dem win, but sshhh about that last part.
Primaries use public voting infrastructure, at least in my state, so I can see the argument that courts can decide who is a legal primary candidate.
The risk is what the GOP is threatening to do in Colorado. If Trump isn’t allowed on the public voting infrastructure, they’ll just caucus instead.
In which case, it’s likely that independents won’t be allowed to participate.
So for primaries, it’s likely to have the opposite effect, more likely for a Trump candidacy, by stirring up the base and locking out potential moderate voters.
For general election, Maine and Colorado don’t practically matter, they were never going to go to trump anyway. So for these two states, it’s ammunition for a persecution complex without good result. For it to be a good strategic win, it would have to be some states that Trump actually has a chance of winning.
The risk is what the GOP is threatening to do in Colorado. If Trump isn’t allowed on the public voting infrastructure, they’ll just caucus instead.
They have every right to. Again, because a primary isn’t an election for office, it’s a private entity (in this case the GOP) being allowed to borrow public infrastructure to help them decide who they want to back for the actual election.
Same reason super delegates for the Dems weren’t illegal, even if they were in bad faith.
It’s perfectly in their rights, but not what an effort seeking to prevent a Trump candidacy should want.
If the state ruled Trump can’t be on the primary ballot because he’s ineligible to be president, then he can’t be on the main ballot because he’s ineligible to be president. That means no Republican will be on the ballot, and that’s really bad for the Republicans.
Trump missing from the ballot in Colorado and Maine would not make a difference, they don’t vote Republican in the general election anyway.
You’d need this to happen in a vaguely competitive state. Judging from the progress of various attempts, that doesn’t seem likely, unless the supreme Court declared it nationally, but I don’t see that happening even if they let Colorado and Maine stand.
So you have got a bunch of Trump die hards inspired to “fight like hell” in the face of what they describe as an injustice, all to block him in a state he wasn’t going to win anyway.
Now if you pulled this off in some place like Georgia, Florida, Texas, then sure, that would be quite the blow and may persuade the GOP voters to really around some other candidate that would be more tolerable. But Colorado and Maine aren’t going to really help general election results.
Get rekt you fucking traitor.
I’m all for disqualifying him from office, but when Colorado did, it was judges who made the call. A Democrat Secretary of State doing it is going to give ammunition to all the partisans who claim the whole thing is political. I’m not saying it’s right or wrong, only that it’s complicated.
going to give ammunition to all the partisans who claim the whole thing is political.
Republicans are going to piss and moan and riot no matter what. We must not delay or suspend justice because we’re afraid of what they might do.
Not only will they piss and moan, but they have a clear cut script for whenever this happens. They claim the person or persons involved are “Biden-loving”, “ultra left radicals”, etc, etc. I’m 100% confident if the Trump campaign ever saw this thread, they would deem us all left wing plants working for Biden.
It is worth being strategic as we consider things.
GOP at least in Colorado has made it clear they will consider Trump no matter what, even if it means going to a private caucus. So these moves won’t keep him out of primaries, but may prevent independents from participating in the Republican primaries.
So this would be valuable only with respect to the general election. Colorado and Maine aren’t going to Trump anyway, so in those contexts it’s worthless.
On the other hand, it feeds the persecution complex. It ends up provoking a “we’ll show those Democrats by electing the guy they are trying to cheat out of his candidacy”.
If you can pull it off in any vaguely Republican voting state, might be worth it. However signs point to that not happening, so it looks like a bag strategy.
Which makes it more important for the Supreme Court to rule one way or the other instead of stalling. He has legally been found to be an insurrectionist, so until the Supreme Court says otherwise, any state that doesn’t allow traitors on ballots has a duty to the voters of their state to remove him.
From the article:
Bellows, a Democrat, issued the decision Thursday after presiding over an administrative hearing earlier this month about Trump’s eligibility for office. A bipartisan group of former state lawmakers filed the challenge against Trump.
IANA political scientist, but I read that as a bipartisan challenge was made, a hearing was held, and the Sec of State sided with the challengers, deciding to remove Trump from the ballot. It doesn’t appear to have just come out of nowhere or been initiated by her. That won’t stop others from arguing against it in bad faith, but there was a process at least, and it seems it’s within her duties to have made that decision. When it’s challenged by Trump (and it will be), then it will be up to a judge or judges to uphold or overturn.
There is going to be oversight on this decision as well, they’re just following the process. The Trumpets have 5 days to appeal and I don’t see why they wouldn’t.
This can of worms is open - every angle needs to be litigated. I’m not looking forward to random secretaries of state declaring eating tacos on the fourth of july to be insurrection.
Oh no, they might try to do something like an insurrection. They did that. Another insurrection? They have plans on the internet and a timeline.
But you’re worried about setting a precedent for the democracy that they laid out plans stating that they’re going to destroy and replace with a dictatorship? If they win. But if they lose, then they might have some sort of precedence in the democracy that still exists? Right? Because that’s what you’re saying. Think about what you’re saying.
Are you okay? Everything’s gonna be alright my dude.
They’re going to pretend they can declare whatever they don’t like an insurrection. The court cases will stabilize interpretation of the amendment, so I think the court cases surrounding this are going to be a good thing… I’m not sure where you were going with the rest of that.
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Well done. With ketchup.
Stake.
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As a vampire, I don’t approve of stakes, and should be made illegal. Steaks, however…
Fuck the republican traitor filth.
Welcome to the club Maine - Love Colorado
Thanks, Santa
I have a question. Can states legally remove Trump from ballots before he has been formally convicted of inciting an insurrection? Doesn’t this just give the GOP ammunition and the option to turn around and do the same thing and remove Biden from red state ballots?
So the courts did find that he participated in an insurrection. But they also ruled that he had presidential immunity, and any prosecution would require an impeachment and trial in the senate. Basically, the courts said they didn’t have jurisdiction to prosecute him for it. They went “lol yeah he definitely did it, but we can’t punish him for it.” And the republicans haven’t actually challenged this. After all, why would they? They control congress, so they simply won’t try him for it in the senate.
But the 14th amendment doesn’t require a conviction. It only requires a sworn official to have violated their oath of office. Which includes participating in an insurrection. It doesn’t require a conviction or even prosecution; It only requires violating your oath of office.
The 14th amendment was written in the wake of the civil war, with the union looking to prevent confederates from holding office. The union feared that the confederates would attempt to seize power through the elections, even after the war was over. But they knew that taking every individual confederate to court would take way too long. It would also run counter to the reunification efforts, because no confederates would agree to rejoin the union if they knew it meant they’d be criminally prosecuted. So instead, the union circumvented the courts and simply barred anyone who violated an oath of office.
The ruling from the original court was that Trump engaged in an insurrection (but enjoys presidential immunity). The presidential immunity bit was then appealed to the Colorado supreme court, who overturned that. That is how we have arrived at (a) he was in an insurrection and (b) he does not qualify to be on the ballot. Trump and is team have never contested (a), so as far as this case goes there is no question about whether he engaged in the insurrection.
Yes to the first and no to the second, its complicated… And I am NOT a lawyer, so take this the way you would any response attempting to be helpful from the internet.
They are removing him due to section 3 of the 14th ammendment, which does not require one to be convicted of anything, just that you violated your oath of office and/or participated in an insurrection/rebellion. It does not really specify the legal mechanism for how this is supposed to works other than that they cant hold office anymore.
The wording is done this way due to southern states sending confederate politicians to washington during reconstruction. President Grant loosened the restriction in 1898 for the Spanish-American war, and since then its only been dusted off once in the 1920s.
Source: I went to the 14th ammendments Wikipedia page.
As for the second question, in theory it shoulden’t give the GOP any ammo to turn around and do this to Biden. This is the reason its playing out slowly in the courts, the state AGs (just Colorado and Maine at this point) are waiting to see if that is a proper application of the ammendment. If the GOP did try turning around and doing this to Biden it would only take one federal judge to stop it. The supreme court could step in and clear this up quickly, but they appear to not want to be seen as a political body. So we wait.
Republicans came for the courts to pervert the system. They perverted the system so they can get rid of the Constitution. They want to get rid of the Constitution so they don’t have to deal with petty shit like facing the music for an attempted coup.
I’m just happy we can protect democracy by interfering with democracy.
If we ban the only guy who instigated coup in US history, I think we’ll be ok.
Okay cool, so you’re saying the ends justify the means and it has absolutely nothing to do with hindering your political adversary? So when your side is the one defying the constitution and the right takes antidemocratic steps to stop them, that will be justified and in no way will you complain?
It’s literally a constitutional amendment my dude. This is how the democracy is structured, at the very foundational level. If you try to attack the lawful transfer of power, you aren’t eligible for office anymore. If a Democrat tries to engage in insurrection, then they too won’t be eligible. That you think defying the constitution is just something that everyone does sooner or later is very very weird.
Was Trump found guilty of insurrection? I must have missed that. My mistake.
It doesn’t say found guilty. It says he done it.
The actual Confederates this was targeted against weren’t found guilty either. There’s a reason “convicted” doesn’t appear in this amendment.
Explain to me how Trump’s actions rise to the level of Confederate soldiers who literally killed fellow Americans. I bet you also think “silence is violence”.
You’re suggesting the constitution isn’t totally democratic? That’s a shocker.
I’m not 100% sure I agree with the particular clause of the 14th amendment, but the beauty of the constitution is if we don’t like it, we can change it. Nevertheless, the amendment writers’ position isn’t baseless and Donnie proves it.
The other side takes anti-democratic steps all the time. If they kept them within the spirit and letter of the Constitution, that’d be a nice change.
There have been plenty of Republican candidates that have never sought to interfere with elections. In fact, of presidential candidates, there has only been the one, as far as I know.
This isn’t a “tank the Republicans”, this is “we can’t abide Trump, specifically”. No one accused McCain, Romney, Bush, of anything like this.
It’s funny that you mention THOSE Republicans because I’m old enough to remember when all three were hailed as the second coming of Hitler by the left. Weird how that’s changed…
I’m old enough to remember and I don’t recall anything so severe as the second coming of Hitler. The worst I recall was Gingrich and Dick Chaney being considered pretty vile, and Bush Jr being seen as lacking competence.
Trump feels unique in how obviously corrupt he wants to go.
As a point of comparison, no one ever even broached the topic of impeachment with W Bush. As disappointed as folks were with facets of his presidency, currying personal favors and working to subvert elections were not anywhere in sight.
Meanwhile, I recall Obama being hailed as the anti Christ. What of it?
They could be, but did anyone try to disqualify them from the ballot based on things they didn’t do?
Get a grip. It was not even close to a coup. You’re drinking too much cool-aid!
It’s not what it looks like!
The fake justification for the coup fell apart years ago so maybe this is the only defense left.
Interfering like devising a wild scheme with fake electors because you’re convinced you should have won, and then encouraging your people to go fight against the peaceful transition when it becomes clear your harebrained plan isn’t working? Interfering like that?
I heard him say “peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard”, but what do I know, I only watched it on video.
But you’re right, letting democracy take its course is stupid, I don’t trust the public to make decisions and have to go through the trouble of voting. The only good democracy is one in which we tell the people who they can vote for. We should probably bar the Republican party from participating too. We don’t want to confuse people by giving them too many choices, especially since we obviously all want another term of Biden. He’s the best!
I heard Hitler say he just wanted to find the answer to the Jewish Question.
Like when the citizens vote for no more voting
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Maine’s top election official has removed former President Donald Trump from the state’s 2024 primary ballot, in a surprising decision based on the 14th Amendment’s “insurrectionist ban.”
The decision makes Maine the second state to disqualify Trump from office, after the Colorado Supreme Court handed down its own stunning ruling that removed him from the ballot earlier this month.
Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat, issued the decision Thursday after presiding over an administrative hearing earlier this month about Trump’s eligibility for office.
“Democracy is sacred … I am mindful that no Secretary of State has ever deprived a presidential candidate of ballot access based on Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment.
“The oath I swore to uphold the Constitution comes first above all, and my duty under Maine’s election laws … is to ensure that candidates who appear on the primary ballot are qualified for the office they seek,” she said.
Explaining her reasoning, Bellows wrote that the challengers presented compelling evidence that the January 6 insurrection “occurred at the behest of” Trump – and that the US Constitution “does not tolerate an assault on the foundations of our government.”
The original article contains 480 words, the summary contains 191 words. Saved 60%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Yes, more of this.
Why Trump isn’t banned in all of the country’s ballot is beyond me.