Thank you @FSFP for continuing to fight for the continued viability of American democracy. https://t.co/Mn9qPdThcM
— Glenn Kirschner (@glennkirschner2) February 29, 2024
Enacted after the Civil War, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment bars from public office any “officer of the United States” who has taken an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution but then participates in an insurrection or rebellion against the country. The text does not require a criminal conviction for the clause to apply.
Plaintiffs’ attorney Caryn Lederer called the ruling “a critical decision that is adding to decisions in Colorado and Maine on this point.”
Last month, a Maine judge deferred a ruling on yet another insurrection clause challenge, citing the Supreme Court’s Colorado case.
Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for Trump’s campaign, said that “today, an activist Democrat judge in Illinois summarily overruled the state’s Board of Elections and contradicted earlier decisions from dozens of other state and federal jurisdictions.”
“This is an unconstitutional ruling that we will quickly appeal,” he added.
According to The New York Times, courts in at least 18 states have dismissed or rejected efforts to exclude Trump from the ballot on 14th Amendment grounds, while unresolved challenges remain in 15 states.
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We’ve borne witness to a chaotic first few months in Trump’s presidency.
Over the last months, each executive order has delivered shock and bewilderment — a core part of a strategy to make the right-wing turn feel inevitable and overwhelming. But, as organizer Sandra Avalos implored us to remember in Truthout last November, “Together, we are more powerful than Trump.”
Indeed, the Trump administration is pushing through executive orders, but — as we’ve reported at Truthout — many are in legal limbo and face court challenges from unions and civil rights groups. Efforts to quash anti-racist teaching and DEI programs are stalled by education faculty, staff, and students refusing to comply. And communities across the country are coming together to raise the alarm on ICE raids, inform neighbors of their civil rights, and protect each other in moving shows of solidarity.
It will be a long fight ahead. And as nonprofit movement media, Truthout plans to be there documenting and uplifting resistance.
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