A group of Minnesota voters have filed a lawsuit to have Trump disqualified from the state’s 2024 ballot.
In a statement provided to PoliticusUSA, non-partisan legal advocacy organization Free Speech For People detailed the Minnesota lawsuit:
Free Speech For People, on behalf of a diverse group of Minnesota voters, filed a legal challenge today to bar Donald Trump from appearing on the state’s presidential ballot in 2024. The petition argues Trump is disqualified from holding public office under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, also known as the Insurrectionist Disqualification Clause, for his role in inciting and facilitating the violent insurrection at the Capitol on January 6th, 2021.
Enacted in the wake of the Civil War, Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment disqualifies from public office any individual who has taken an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution but then engages in insurrection or rebellion against the United States or gives aid or comfort to its enemies. No prior criminal conviction is required. Trump’s involvement in the violent attack on Congress to prevent the certification of election results, which resulted in the disruption of the peaceful transfer of power for the first time in our nation’s history, disqualifies him from holding any future public office. State election officials do not need permission from Congress to enforce the Insurrectionist Disqualification Clause, just as they do not need congressional approval to enforce the U.S. Constitution in general.
The question that will need to be answered by the courts is whether voters have legal standing to have a candidate disqualified or does the lawsuit need to come from a secretary of state or another candidate? Legal experts agree that another candidate would have the strongest legal standing, but many liberal and conservative constitutional scholars believe that Donald Trump is already disqualified from the 2024 ballot.
Lawsuits are popping up all over the country to disqualify Trump, and it may only take one ruling to get Trump off of the ballot to start the dominoes falling all over the country.