California State Assemblymember Evan Low, a Democrat representing Silicon Valley, is spearheading an effort with fellow Democrats to request that California Attorney General Rob Bonta seek a court order to remove former President Donald Trump from the 2024 primary election ballot.
The effort relies on a somewhat unlikely idea, supported by both Democrats and Never Trump Republicans, that Trump could be disqualified from holding public office under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment.
This section pertains to individuals who have “engaged in insurrection” against the United States. However, the wording of the amendment doesn’t explicitly pertain to the president, and a significant number of Capitol rioters believed they were acting to defend the Constitution rather than rebelling against it.
Moreover, Democratic officials in other states have declined to exclude Trump — notably Arizona’s secretary of state, who said state law prevents officials from barring Trump from the ballot under the Fourteenth Amendment.
As previously reported by Politico:
Nine California lawmakers wrote a letter to Attorney General Rob Bonta over the weekend, arguing that Trump isn’t eligible to be on the ballot for inciting an insurrection when a mob of his supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Bonta,