A growing movement on the left seeks to bar former President Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers accused of ties to last year’s Capitol riot from running for future office. Advocates cite a Civil War-era constitutional amendment to try to brand them as traitors.
The liberal groups Free Speech for People and Our Revolution have sent letters urging election officials in all 50 states to disqualify Mr. Trump and his allies from qualifying for the ballot.
“On many levels, our democracy is under threat, and grassroots activists are ready to stand up to defend it,” said Paco Fabian, Our Revolution’s campaigns director. “We need to demand that our election officers follow the rule of law and ensure that current and former elected officials who participated in the January 6th insurrection are barred from appearing on any future ballot.”
The letters, addressed to the heads of state election boards, ask them to exclude Mr. Trump from ballots amid speculation that he may run for president again in 2024.
“Fundamentally, your authority and responsibility to exclude an ineligible candidate from the presidential ballot inheres in the interaction between the roles of Congress and the states in the presidential selection process. The states play a critical role in that process, but cannot act inconsistently with the U.S. Constitution,” wrote Ron Fein, legal director of Free Speech for People.
Rep. Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican who is refusing to cooperate with a special House committee’s investigation of the riot, said the effort to bar Republican candidates is “just Democrats acting like Democrats.”
“There’s no precedent, no principle, no norm that the Democrats won’t violate,” Mr. Jordan said in an interview. “They’ve kicked Republicans off committee[s], they won’t let Republicans serve on [the] select committee. They have closed the Capitol. They’ve enacted proxy voting. They want to make D.C. a state. They want to end the filibuster. They want to end the Electoral College. They want to pack the [Supreme] Court. They want to nationalize elections. The Jan. 6th committee has taken evidence and altered it and lied to the American people. So there’s nothing that they won’t try to do.”
By Mica Soellner and Kerry Picket
