The idea of barring former President Donald Trump from seeking the presidency on grounds that it would violate the 14th Amendment may be an increasingly catchy constitutional argument pushed by a segment of legal scholars and activists.
But it turns out election officials have been discussing how to handle it for months.
We have been thinking about this in my office for quite some time, before the start of the year, assuming that this will play out,” Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold said in an interview.
Underscoring the seriousness with which she has been treating the topic, Griswold noted that “there have been conversations among secretaries” about it.
The legal theory argues Trump is constitutionally disqualified from running for president under the 14th Amendment’s “insurrection clause,” which states that anyone who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” after taking an oath of office to defend the Constitution is forbidden from holding public office.
The theory has rarely been tested in modern times, creating a significant degree of uncertainty around who even has the ability to make the determination on whether Trump should be kept off the ballot — let alone what legally is considered “an insurrection or rebellion.”