Donald Trump is squealing like a stuck pig. That loud, ALL-CAPS squeal is Trump complaining about being kept off the ballot in Colorado and now Maine. This is the guy who doesn’t know the word con-se-quenc-es because it has too many syllables in it.
Come on Donald…when you try to overthrow the results of a valid election and encourage your followers to interfere with the counting of electoral votes using violence, there are consequences, and they happen to be spelled out in the Constitution. See the 14th Amendment, section 3. You’ll find the word in-sur-rec-tion-ist there.
Pay attention Donald, it is time to learn some big words.
What’s that Donald? You haven’t read the Con-sti-tu-tion because it has a lot of syllables? I understand you don’t like being bothered with details. But as they say, details are where the devil lives as you are finding out.
Everyone on the television news shows, especially FOX, is saying that what Colorado and Maine did is un-prec-e-dent-ed. Even though this word has several syllables, it seems to be the one most often associated with Trump. Donald has never met a precedent he didn’t hate.
But here is the re-al-i-ty for you Donald…come on, the word “reality” doesn’t have that many syllables. Keeping people off state ballots is not unprecedented. It has happened many, many times in United States history. Let’s go through some of these precedents for keeping people off the ballot, shall we?
Right here in Iowa, Dave Busiek, who writes a substack column and a great one, brought to our attention recently that in 1981, former Governor Harold Hughes who was very popular and well-liked in the state, was denied the opportunity to run for governor again because he had been living in Maryland for several years working with ministries in the Washington D.C. area. It turns out the Iowa Constitution (there is that long word again) requires that a person live for two years in the state before they can run for Governor. The secretary of state, Mary Jane Odell had to deny him being on the ballot because that’s what secretaries of state do.
Every state, all 50 of them Donald, has rejected candidates to appear on ballots due to procedural or process reasons. Barring or removing candidates from the ballot for failing to meet substantive or procedural qualifications is a routine and basic process. It isn’t unprecedented.
Here are some other examples:
In Oregon, the secretary of state deemed the gubernatorial candidate, Nicholas Kristof ineligible because they have a three-year residency requirement in 2022. Performing their role overseeing election administration, the Oregon secretary of state reviewed the factual record, finding that Kristof paid taxes in New York, owned a house in New York, and voted in New York as recently as 2020. He was denied eligibility.
In Connecticut in 2010, the state supreme court declared that attorney general candidate and then-Connecticut Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz was ineligible to appear on the ballot because she did not meet the minimum statutory qualifications of 10 years of law practice. Under Connecticut state law, a candidate for attorney general must have at least 10 years of “active practice” as an attorney in the state of Connecticut, having “some experience litigating cases in court.” It turned out after investigation, that Bysiewicz had neither.
In 2012, the Colorado secretary of state excluded Abdul Hassan from the ballot for president because he was not a natural-born citizen. Under Colorado law, any individual seeking access to the presidential ballot must affirm on their filing paperwork that they meet the constitutional qualifications for the office, including that they are a natural-born citizen of the United States. Hassan was a naturalized citizen and was born in Guyana.
In 2008, the Nevada secretary of state refused balloting for eight candidates because of term limits. The case went to the State Supreme Court which directed that the eight candidates running for reelection to state and local office be excluded from the ballot because they were term-limited under the state constitution. The Nevada Supreme Court granted the secretary of state’s request. Its findings concluded that the candidates were term-limited and must be excluded from the ballot.
Candidate for mayor and councilperson, T. Magoo Dorcy, was found ineligible to run for office in 1994 under the Delaware Constitution, which prohibits a person who has been convicted of an “infamous crime” from holding or running for office. Dorcy was convicted of a misdemeanor in Ohio and argued that wouldn’t keep him from running. However, the State Court determined that Dorcy’s behavior in Ohio is deemed a felony in Delaware, therefore he was still excluded.
In New Jersey in 1960, presidential and vice-presidential candidates Henry Krajewski and Anne Marie Yezo were excluded from the ballot for violating the 12th Amendment’s prohibition on electors voting for a presidential and vice-presidential candidate who are both from the same state as the elector. The secretary of state rejected the petition by Krajewski and Yezo’s electors because the petition revealed that both were New Jersey residents and thus the state’s presidential electors could not vote for both under the 12th Amendment.
In 1972, the Illinois secretary of state excluded presidential candidate Linda Jenness (Socialist Workers Party) from the ballot because she was 31, four years younger than the requirement in Article II of the U.S. Constitution that a president must be at least 35 years old.
In 2022, Barney Donalson, Jr. was excluded from the ballot in a Texas city council election (Canton) for violating the state’s statutory prohibition on people convicted of felonies serving in elected office. Donalson had been convicted of multiple felonies and had not been “pardoned or otherwise released from the resulting disabilities” as required under the Texas state statute.
In Oklahoma in 1994, then-state senator Mike Fair was prohibited from running for state labor commissioner under the Oklahoma Constitution, which states that a legislator is ineligible to serve in an office whose salary was increased during the legislator’s term. The state supreme court upheld the restriction.
In Idaho in 2014, the secretary of state advised a sitting member of the judiciary, Judge Boughton, that he was ineligible to run for reelection because he exceeded the state’s statutory retirement age. Under a state law in effect at the time, Idaho judges were ineligible to run for office after turning 70. The Idaho Supreme Court upheld the mandatory retirement age statute, and as a result, upheld the secretary of state’s decision to exclude Boughton as a judicial candidate.
Donald these are just a few of the many examples of states barring individuals from ballots for valid Constitutional or state law reasons. You see Donald, the details and the syllables do contain a devil for you. If you are found to be ineligible to run for office under the 14th Amendment, Section 3 of the US Constitution, by a court or a state election official, then removing you from that ballot is supported by historical practice and precedent in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Defending our Democracy requires keeping insurrectionists from holding office. This issue will certainly end up at the United States Supreme Court in 2024. With the or-ig-in-al-ists sitting on that court, it would be difficult to find any other ruling than barring an insurrectionist.
Donald, I suggest you learn some multi-syllable words in a hurry. In-sur-rec-tion-ist is one of them.
I agree 100% except for the syllable thing. After all he changed De-San-tis (3 syllables) to De-Sanc-ti-mon-i-ous (6 syllables). So, I wouldn't give him that excuse--humorous though. He does know what he is doing, it's just catching up to him--finally.
Outstanding piece--I’m covering this topic next Wednesday, I believe, and noting the difference between being ineligible and unqualified to run for president. To wit: Trump was never qualified but is now also ineligible.