Invoking a provision of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution, a Palm Beach County attorney has filed one of the first legal challenges aimed at preventing Donald Trump from running in the 2024 presidential election.
The case in issue was initiated by Boynton Beach-based tax attorney Lawrence Caplan. This challenge was filed by Caplan in the federal court in the Southern District of Florida. The challenge was based on the “disqualification clause” detailed in the amendment, which applies to those who have participated in acts of insurrection and rebellion against the United States. The amendment was ratified in 1868, after the conclusion of the Civil War and during the period of Reconstruction. It also included provisions regarding the citizenship of emancipated slaves and the reintegration of the formerly secessionist Confederate states into the Union.
In recent weeks, the discussion surrounding the potential applicability of the 14th Amendment’s disqualification provision to President Trump has garnered increasing attention. Numerous legal scholars, including those with reactionary viewpoints, have endorsed this proposition. State election officials have acknowledged that they are currently deliberating the appropriate course of action should a challenge be filed.
According to constitutional historian Kevin Wagner, using the amendment to remove Trump from the ballot is a complex endeavor that faces significant legal, constitutional, and political hurdles.
“There’s a legitimate argument that one can make surrounding the plain wording of the 14th Amendment and the accusations of what the president did on Jan. 6,” said Wagner, a professor of political science at Florida Atlantic University. “But I think it’s a harder lift than people think and at the end of the day you have to find someone that’s willing to enforce it.”
Pensacola News Journal reports, “the amendment’s Section 3 addresses the disqualification of any U.S. citizen from holding office if ‘having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.’”
According to Caplan’s legal argument, Trump’s actions on January 6, 2021 constituted a violation of the amendment. Therefore, the proposal is made to prohibit Trump from running for president and from participating in the presidential primary in Florida on March 19, 2024.
The document stated, “The bottom line here is that President Trump both engaged in an insurrection and also gave aid and comfort to other individuals who were engaging in such actions, within the clear meaning of those terms as defined in Section Three of the 14th Amendment.”
Trump has categorically denied any improper conduct.
Before departing Atlanta on Thursday night after being detained on election-related charges, Trump reiterated that he was merely contesting vote tallies and that the Georgia indictment constituted “election interference.”
Trump has categorically denied any improper conduct.
Before departing Atlanta on Thursday night after being detained on election-related charges, Trump reiterated that he was merely contesting vote tallies and that the Georgia indictment constituted “election interference.”