‘Trump Is Disqualified’: Activists Aim to Keep Insurrectionist Off Ballot in Key States

“Failing to hold him responsible not only violates the Constitution, but it also sets a dangerous precedent for permitting violent attacks on our democracy,” said the Free Speech for People campaign director.

A pair of advocacy organizations that have long argued former President Donald Trump’s incitement of the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol legally disqualifies him from holding office again plan to make that case with a week of rallies and banner drops beginning on Sunday.

Free Speech for People and Mi Familia Vota are among various groups and legal scholars that cite Section 3 of the 14th Amendment—which bars from office anyone who has taken an oath to support the U.S. Constitution and then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion”—to assert that Trump and some congressional Republicans can’t serve in government because of the Capitol attack.

The two groups are now organizing events outside secretary of state offices in California, Colorado, Georgia, and Oregon “to make sure that they are taking a stand by disqualifying Trump in those spaces, which is something that the secretary of state can do,” Mi Familia Vota executive director Héctor Sánchez toldThe Hill.

The activists also focused on Nevada, and sent a related letter to Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar last month. The upcoming events are set to coincide with the 155th anniversary of the amendment’s ratification on Sunday.

“Trump is responsible for the January 6th insurrection, plain and simple.”

“Trump is responsible for the January 6th insurrection, plain and simple,” said Alexandra Flores-Quilty, campaign director at Free Speech for People. “Failing to hold him responsible not only violates the Constitution, but it also sets a dangerous precedent for permitting violent attacks on our democracy. That’s not a risk we can afford to take.”

‘Trump Is Disqualified’: Activists Aim to Keep Insurrectionist Off Ballot in Key States (commondreams.org)