Trump's Not Eligible To Be On a Ballot

So why do we keep having this conversation about his run for re-election in 2024?

Charles D. Ellison | Publisher’s Note

One of the more infuriating aspects of the 2024 president election cycle is the fact that, as it stands now, the Constitution outright forbids Donald Trump to ever run for office – any office – ever again. So why does his bid for re-election take up so much space?  

Unfortunately, too many people, especially (and even more surprisingly) Democrats, are acting like such a fact doesn’t exist or that this now increasingly better-known provision in the Constitution doesn’t apply. Yet, the language in it reads explicitly and urgently, some can say even angrily by authors who didn’t want to see another cataclysmic Civil War (which took 1.5 million American lives) ever happen again. That’s why 14^th Amendment, Section 3 is called the disqualification clause …

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability. 

We need to keep discussing this. That “no person” sounds a lot like Trump, right? Same cat currently catching insurmountable wave of prosecutorial fade from four criminal cases across four states in nearly a hundred criminal charges. While not all of them point specifically to insurrection or drop the disqualification clause itself, various elements of some cases point to moments that are clearly insurrectionist, rebellious or show an intent to overthrow a legitimate federal election, which last we all checked or were told in school was treason. Perhaps, if the various prosecutors who’ve already arraigned Trump wanted to, they probably could point this out. One problem here is that Trump provides himself the ongoing luxury of using over $130 million in donor funds to endlessly cover his vast portfolio of legal bills, as the Center for Responsive Politics Open Secrets project uncovered this past August. Maybe they’re all thinking use of the 14^th Amendment is a legal bridge too far, let’s keep this out of an already compromised Supreme Court.  

There is no question: We shouldn’t even be having this daily conversation about Trump’s name on Republican primary or general election ballots. Nor should pollsters be polling hypothetical match-ups between Trump and his GOP rivals or Trump and President Biden. Section 3 in the 14^th Amendment is unambiguously lucid on the definition of Trump’s elaborate anti-government schemes. Two of the criminal cases, from District Attorney Fani Willis’ Georgia case to special counsel Jack Smith’s federal D.C. case, are all about overturning legit election results. That’s insurrection. Another federal case that’s slow-moving in Florida because of its Trump-appointed judge is about the theft and mishandling of top secret government documents. That’s possibly giving aid to enemies because why else would you stuff classified military secrets in your country club and not return them. We all saw, on live broadcast, his bullhorn battle cry encouraging Confederate-flag waving terrorists to attack the U.S. Capitol and disrupt 2020 election certification proceedings on January 6^th , 2021, and we heard this May how he’s “inclined to pardon … a large portion” of those same terrorists. That’s giving “aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.” 

And, yet, beyond the few legal scholars and advocacy organizations calling this out, no prosecutor, no election official or Secretary of State is willing to make the right, Constitutional move: blocking Trump’s name from the ballot.  

Part of the reason is pure partisan politics. Less than half of the 50 secretaries of state are Democrats. Republicans being fascist-aligned Republicans who go with the Trump flow are not removing their man from the ballot. Local or county-level officials are heavily divided along partisan lines, too. The other reason, however, has to do with a mix of fear and inability to think creatively on a political battlefield. Many Democratic party sources, including elections officials and administrators, keep pushing back with the excuse that “he hasn’t been convicted.” Clearly, the provision says nothing about conviction, and it has been used before. As recently as 2022, a federal judge removed a New Mexico county elected official from office for participating in the January 6^th attack. Before then, during Reconstruction, there were instances when the disqualification clause was deployed against politicians pledging allegiance to the Confederacy. If they could do it back in the 1860s, what exactly is holding people back in the 2020s against a national security threat as wide open as Trump? 

You’d think Democrats would move on this first. But, nope, it’s actually, a growing number of Republicans who are looking into the 14^th Amendment Section 3 to dethrone Trump from his grip on their party. Moving to disqualify Trump also presents an enormous political opportunity and power play for Black elected officials, especially those in big cities in battleground states like Philadelphia where Black votes were key in the 2020 election and could be crucial again in 2024. Citizens, along with social associations, anchor institutions (such as Black churches) and civic organizations, should learn more about the disqualification clause and demand the Trump be deemed ineligible for a re-run. If elected officials refuse to do it, voters can easily perform their own style of disqualification by simply un-electing and replacing them in the next election cycle.