The Colorado Supreme Court and Maine's Secretary of State have both declared that former President Donald Trump is disqualified from being on Republican primary ballots in 2024 because of his role in the events that led to the January 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol Building when the electoral votes from the 2020 presidential election were being counted. This is a hard question, which I have thought carefully about for months now and here is my final conclusion.
An early draft of Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment provided in effect that: "No person shall be President or Vice President, Senator or Representative, or elector of President of President and Vice President or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, or as a Member of any State Legislature, or as any executive or judicial officer who, having previously taken an oath 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.
The words "President or Vice President" were deliberately edited out of the final version of Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. This, together with the disqualification of presidential electors and vice-presidential elector who have engaged in "insurrection or rebellion" makes it clear that the Framers' of Section 3 did not intend for it to apply to presidents or vice presidents who engaged in insurrection.
