Two civil rights groups are launching a campaign to block former President Donald Trump from becoming president once more, citing alleged violations of the 14th Amendment related to the Jan. 6 incident.
The groups “Free Speech for People” and “MI Familia Vota” will hold multiple rallies and banner drops for a week beginning Sunday outside the offices of the secretaries of state of Oregon, Georgia, Colorado, and California. The duty of certifying the eligibility of political candidates and counting votes in the state falls on the secretaries of state. The protests are part of a campaign from the groups seeking to ban Mr. Trump from running for the 2024 presidential election due to his alleged involvement in the Jan. 6 Capitol breach.
“Because of his role in inciting, encouraging, and supporting the January 6th insurrection, Trump is constitutionally ineligible for any future run for office,” Free Speech for People said on its website.
Section 3 of the 14th Amendment was enacted in the wake of the civil war. It prohibits former officers of the United States who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” from seeking public office. The provision was enacted to exclude former Confederate officers from holding federal and state office. It is not clear whether Section 3 applies to a U.S. president.
People have spoken out against the leftist campaigns against Mr. Trump. “Have the Dems ever been as afraid of getting trounced by a [Republican] presidential candidate this badly before? Nothing like it,” Jeff Clark, a former official from the Department of Justice, said in a July 8 tweet.
“It’s 14th [Amendment] disqualification now. They’re pulling out every stop & every start & every pause they can think of against Trump.”
In a recent interview with the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Nevada Republican Party Chairman Michael McDonald said that efforts to prohibit Mr. Trump from running for the 2024 presidency should be a “wake-up call” for all GOP members.
“The Democrats and liberal side of the Democratic Party will go to all extreme measures to make sure President Trump is not on the ballot,” he said. “That should be on the minds of Republicans in Nevada. They need to make their voices heard and stand up and fight for the man who’s been fighting for them.”
Using 14th Amendment Against Trump
In an interview with CBS back in January 2021, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D), who had voted to convict Mr. Trump in the impeachment push following the Jan. 6 incident, raised doubts about using the 14th Amendment to bar the former President in the upcoming election.
“Because the 14th Amendment is not explicit on how you determine whether someone participated in an insurrection,” he said. “If they had been convicted of that in a court of law, then I can understand how you can use it as a predicate for prohibiting people from running for office.”
“But there is a real serious question, if that conviction has not taken place, whether the Congress can have a finding, or the Senate can have a finding that they are guilty of insurrection and whether that’s sufficient. So it’s unresolved.”
The Senate had acquitted Mr. Trump from the impeachment charge of inciting an insurrection. Though there have been arguments that Congress could decide to bar Mr. Trump from elections through a simple majority in the House and the Senate, the U.S. Constitution prohibits such moves.
Article I, Section 9, Clause 3 of the Constitution specifically bans Congress from passing any “bills of attainder,” a legal term for using a legislative act to declare any individual to be guilty of crime. The power to determine whether a person is guilty or not rests with the judiciary and not the legislative bodies.
An estimated 30,000 people flood the streets of Pickens, S.C., for a pre-Independence Day rally supporting former President Donald Trump as he is campaigning to retake the White House, on July 1, 2023. Janice Hisle/The Epoch Times
Meanwhile, former Vice President Mike Pence said that Mr. Trump’s push to overturn the 2020 election is reason enough to disqualify the former President from once more running for office. Mr. Pence was speaking during the launch of his 2024 presidential campaign.
“The American people deserve to know on that fateful day, President Trump also demanded I choose between him and our Constitution,” Mr. Pence said, referring to the Jan. 6 incident, according to The Hill. “Now, voters will be faced with the same choice. I chose the Constitution, and I always will.”
By launching a presidential campaign, Mr. Pence has become the first vice president in modern times to challenge his former running mate for the GOP nomination.
According to data from Morning Consult, Donald Trump had 57 percent support in the GOP primaries as of June 27, leaving other contenders far behind. Mr. Pence only had 7 percent support.
Support for Mr. Trump does not seem to be waning despite the multiple charges raised against him. Following his indictment in Florida last month, the former president managed to pull in a crowd of 50,000 supporters at a rally in Pickens, South Carolina. The city only has a total population of about 3,000 people.
Naveen Athrappully
Author
Naveen Athrappully is a news reporter covering business and world events at The Epoch Times.
