Weekly Spotlight: The movement to disqualify Trump

Sep 09, 2023

Delivered to our subscribers on Saturdays, the Weekly Spotlight is a roundup of POGO's latest work and announcements. Sign up to get this newsletter delivered to your inbox.

With the 2024 presidential primary race heating up, the movement to disqualify former President Donald Trump from the ballot is gaining steam. And rightly so. We’ve been arguing for a while that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment can and should be used to keep Trump from returning to office. The Constitution states that officials who engage in insurrection cannot return to office, and it’s clear Trump aided the January 6 insurrection.

There are movements underway in several states — including New Hampshire, Colorado, and Connecticut — to disqualify Trump, abiding by the Constitution.

We hope to see this momentum build. Trump’s role in stoking an insurrection on January 6, 2021, is disqualifying behavior, and states have the ability — and responsibility — to keep unqualified candidates off the ballot. This week, we released a report along with Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) demonstrating that states have kept candidates from appearing on the ballot before. We hope it will be a useful guide for state officials as they get more questions on this.

REPORT

Routine Disqualification: Every State Has Kept Ineligible Candidates Off the Ballot, and Trump Could Be Next

All 50 states and the District of Columbia have excluded candidates who do not meet requirements to appear on the ballot, and excluding Trump and other disqualified insurrectionists can be done through the same mechanisms.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“So if you’re on the committee and you’re invested in these companies that manufacture arms and equipment and they’re benefiting financially from those transactions, there could definitely be a conflict of interest.”

Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette, Senior Government Affairs Manager, in Roll Call

OVERHEARD

We wrote about Stewart in our latest investigation. DHS experts called it the “dirtiest medicinal space l have ever seen in a detention facility” and had plans for one mental health practitioner for 1800 people. https://t.co/dMghwRVfbj https://t.co/UctjfJmGsg
— F Martinez (@twocatsand_docs) September 7, 2023

ONE LINERS

“The potential invasion of Taiwan by China really drives almost every decision about national security matters right now, and it remains to be seen if we’re actually looking at the right scenario.”

Dan Grazier, Senior Defense Policy Fellow, on Background Briefing

“It’s this zombie program phenomenon where everybody knows deep down we are going in the wrong direction.”

Dan Grazier, Senior Defense Policy Fellow, in ProPublica