With the 2024 primary election fast approaching, anticipation is swirling around with regards to if it will be ruled constitutional for Donald Trump to appear on ballots. Several state governments, including Colorado and Maine have recently expressed the desire to take Trump off the ballots. We stand in support of Colorado and Maine.
The push to take Trump off the ballot comes from claims that the former president violated the 14th amendment, which bars anyone who has engaged in insurrection from holding a public office.
The amendment “was adopted in 1868, following the Civil War,” according to PBS and “has been so rarely used that the nation’s highest court had no previous occasion to interpret it.”
However, the article states the court “agreed to take up a case from Colorado stemming from Trump’s role in the events that culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.”
The Colorado Supreme Court ruled in a 4-3 decision that Trump’s name should not appear on the ballot for the upcoming presidential election. After the ruling, a Trump campaign spokesperson commented that the Colorado Supreme Court issued a “completely flawed decision tonight and we will swiftly file an appeal to the United States Supreme Court.”
We have to disagree with the above statement. Although we believe that Trump is partially responsible for the insurrection, the validity surrounding whether Trump engaged in the insurrection that took place Jan. 6, 2021 has been something largely debated between political parties.
Shenna Bellows, Maine’s Democratic Secretary of State, defended the decision to rule Trump ineligible on the state’s Republican primary ballot in 2024 during a conversation with Scott Detrow on NPR’s “All Things Considered.” Bell explained that registered Maine voters have the opportunity to challenge qualified candidates, which is different from other states.
“I was required under the statute, under the law, to hold a hearing and issue a decision and do so within a very compressed timeline,” Bellows stated. “So this wasn’t something I initiated, but it’s something that’s required under Maine election law.”
Additionally, two of the five Maine voters that challenged Trump’s qualification on the primary ballot were former Republican senators. Tom Saviello, one of the two former Republican Maine Senators that voted to challenge Trump’s qualification, told CNN that Trump simply “does not meet those qualifications” because of his involvement in the insurrection. This comes as a surprise considering Saviello’s endorsement for Trump during the previous election.
That may be a positive sign towards a possible ruling from the Supreme Court as the onus of this whole debacle falls to them. That said, it is not an inspiring thought for us. We feel the political leanings of the nine judges would likely bring about a ruling that favors Trump.
According to Axios, there are six republican-leaning justices to three democrats. PBS Newshour writes that this is a ruling that the nation’s highest court has never-before-seen. The fact that this is the first time the Supreme Court has interpreted the nature of a provision of the 14th amendment is highly concerning because of the precedent that it sets. Will the justices act in favor of their judicial duties or will personal political opinion cloud their judgment? We are not confident that the right thing, ruling in favor of the constitutional provision allowing the de-balloting of Trump, will be done.
We feel presidential candidates should represent the ideal American citizen, and frankly we can’t in good conscience put Donald Trump in that category, considering his involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection. While it is out of our hands to determine whether Trump should again be a candidate to the U.S. presidency, we support the efforts of Colorado and Maine in their omission of Trump’s name on the presidential candidates’ ballot.
