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A liberal group filed a lawsuit Tuesday to block former President Donald Trump from the 2024 presidential ballot in Minnesota, the second major lawsuit in two weeks that hopes to invoke the 14th Amendment’s arcane “insurrectionist ban.”
The cases are seen as legal long shots. Trump denies wrongdoing and has vowed to fight to remain on the presidential ballot. The new Minnesota lawsuit was filed in state court by Free Speech For People, one week after another group initiated a similar challenge in Colorado.
A post-Civil War provision of the 14th Amendment says any American official who takes an oath to uphold the US Constitution is disqualified from holding future office if they “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” or have “given aid or comfort” to insurrectionists.
However, the Constitution doesn’t spell out how to enforce this ban, and it has been applied only twice since the late 1800s, when it was used against former Confederates.
Keeping him off the ballot in solidly blue states is a rather irrelevant effort, even for a just a moral victory
Minnesota is not a “blue” state, Biden only carried 52% of the vote with trump claiming 45%- much of that were moderate Republicans simply skipping the vote.
While yes, the dems control things on a state level, that control is very tenuous, with democrats mostly being carried by the urbanized areas- the twin cities and Duluth, but it’s all still very close to 50/50.
It would practically guarantee that a Trump victory would again be without the popular vote — which he’d hate.
It would also probably be enough to get a substantial number of morons that would otherwise vote for him, vote for some other idiot.
This could have the most impact in a battleground state,
Might convince Trumpers to not vote at all, which could help other elections/measures on the ballot