As we enter the 2024 election year, challenges to former President Donald Trump’s eligibility as a candidate in 2024 have been filed in about half the states across the nation. And it’s still unclear whether state courts and executives have power over political party primaries for the presidential candidate.
The legal theory behind the challenges—that President Trump is ineligible to hold office again under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment—began circulating as early as Jan. 7, 2021, with advocacy groups sending letters to election officials in all 50 states, alleging the president was party to an “insurrection” at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. This reasoning has become the basis of dozens of ongoing lawsuits, some of which President Trump has been actively litigating for months.
The 14th Amendment was ratified after the Civil War and conferred citizenship and equal rights to all persons born and naturalized in the United States, extending the rights to former slaves. Section 3 was written to prevent those who abandoned their offices to join the Confederacy from returning without a two-thirds vote by Congress.
Two deadlines may soon see these challenges come to an end: the appeal of the Colorado Supreme Court disqualification ruling via a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court by Jan. 4, and state deadlines to certify and print the primary ballots.
