Officials in Colorado and Maine have ruled that Donald Trump is ineligible to run for the White House again, citing his role in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.
In Colorado, the state supreme court ruled 4-3 earlier this month to take the former president off the state’s Republican presidential primary ballot; on Thursday, Maine’s secretary of state kicked him off the ballot there too.
The decisions will probably have major legal and political ramifications for the 2024 election, and stem from a rarely used provision of the US constitution known as the insurrection clause.
Trump’s campaign promised to immediately appeal the decisions to the US supreme court, which could well strike them down. Similar lawsuits are working their way through the courts in other states.
Here’s what we know so far, and what it might mean for the former president and current Republican frontrunner.
What is the insurrection clause and why was it used?
The decision by the Colorado supreme court is the first time a candidate has been deemed ineligible for the White House under the US constitutional provision.
Section 3 of the 14th amendment, also referred to as the insurrection clause, bars anyone from Congress, the military, and federal and state offices who once took an oath to uphold the constitution but then “engaged” in “insurrection or rebellion” against it.
Ratified in 1868, the 14th amendment helped ensure civil rights for formerly enslaved people, but also was intended to prevent former Confederate officials from regaining power as members of Congress and taking over the government they had just rebelled against.
Some legal scholars say the post-civil war clause applies to Trump because of his role in trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election and obstruct the transfer of power to Joe Biden by encouraging his supporters to storm the US Capitol.
“The dangers of Trump ever being allowed back into public office are exactly those foreseen by the framers of section 3,” Ron Fein, the legal director for Free Speech for People, said in a recent interview. “Which is that they knew that if an oath-taking insurrectionist were allowed back into power, they would do the same if not worse.”
How did this happen?
In Colorado, the case was brought by a group of voters, aided by the group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew), who argued Trump should be disqualified from the ballot for his role in the 6 January 2021 riot at the US Capitol.
Noah Bookbinder, the group’s president, celebrated the decision as “not only historic and justified, but … necessary to protect the future of democracy in our country”.
Colorado’s highest court overturned an earlier ruling from a district court judge, who found that Trump’s actions on January 6 did amount to inciting an insurrection, but that he could not be barred from the ballot, because it was unclear that the clause was intended to cover the role of the presidency.
A majority of the state supreme court’s seven justices, all of whom were appointed by Democratic governors, disagreed.
In Maine, the secretary of state, Shenna Bellows, examined the case after a group of citizens challenged Trump’s eligibility and concluded that he should be disqualified for inciting an insurrection on 6 January 2021.
Has this happened before?
The provision has rarely been used, and never in such a high-profile case. In 1919, Congress refused to seat a socialist, contending he gave aid and comfort to the country’s enemies during the first world war.
Last year, in the clause’s first use since then, a New Mexico judge barred a rural county commissioner who had entered the Capitol on January 6 from office.
What does this mean for the election?
The Colorado ruling applies only to the state’s Republican primary, which will take place on 5 March, meaning Trump might not appear on the ballot for that vote. The same is true in Maine – if the decision takes effect, it would only apply to the state’s ballot.
The Colorado supreme court temporarily stayed its ruling until 4 January, however, which would allow the US supreme court until then to decide whether to take the case. That’s the day before the qualifying deadline for candidates.
Colorado is no longer a swing state – Biden won it by a double-digit margin in 2020, and the last time a Republican won it was 2004 – but the ruling could influence other cases across the US, where dozens of similar cases are percolating. Other state courts have ruled against the plaintiffs; in Michigan, a judge ruled that Congress, not the courts, should make the call.
Advocates hoped the case would boost a wider disqualification effort and potentially put the issue before the US supreme court. It’s unclear whether the court might rule on narrow procedural and technical grounds, or answer the underlying constitutional question of whether Trump can be banished from the ballot under the 14th amendment.
The case could have significant political fallout as well. Trump allies will paint it as an anti-democratic effort to thwart the will of the American people, lumping it in with the numerous legal cases he faces in state and federal court.
“Democrats are so afraid that President Trump will win on Nov 5th 2024 that they are illegally attempting to take him off the ballot,” the Republican congresswoman Elise Stefanik, a close Trump ally, posted on social media.
Trump didn’t mention the decision during an evening rally on 19 December in Iowa but his campaign sent out a fundraising email calling it a “tyrannical ruling”, with the statement going on to say:
“Democrat Party leaders are in a state of paranoia over the growing, dominant lead President Trump has amassed in the polls. They have lost faith in the failed Biden presidency and are now doing everything they can to stop the American voters from throwing them out of office next November.”
Trump’s attorneys, meanwhile, have argued that the 14th amendment’s language does not apply to the presidency. A lawyer for Trump has also argued that the January 6 riot at the Capitol was not serious enough to qualify for insurrection, and that any remarks that Trump made to his supporters that day in Washington were protected under free speech.
