Groups seek to keep Trump off 2024 ballot due to insurrection

Amid a national progressive campaign to keep former president Donald Trump off the 2024 ballot, should he choose to run again, Massachusetts’s top elections official says it’s not so simple – and the issue is in the US Department of Justice’s hands.

The core of the discussion is the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution, which says no person shall hold office in the United States who took an oath to support the Constitution, then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the [Constitution].” The 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868 amid Reconstruction after the Civil War. That section was intended to prevent Confederate leaders from regaining political power. 

The Newton-based Free Speech for People and Our Revolution, which is Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’s group, launched a campaign asking election officials in each state to keep Trump off the primary ballot because of his involvement in the January 6 Capitol riots.

“Thankfully, insurrections against the United States are quite rare, and even rarer for an insurrection against the US to have been fomented or led by high officials who took an oath to support the Constitution,” said Ron Fein, legal director of Free Speech for People, in an interview. “But January 6, 2021, crossed that threshold. And the evidence has been out for awhile, but continues to be further emerging, in some of the details about how former President Trump met the legal standard for engaging in that insurrection.”

“There is no constitutional requirement that Congress, a court, or anyone else formally adjudicate this question before you may decide his eligibility for the ballot,” the letter says. The groups say it is no different from excluding a presidential candidate who is underage or foreign born.

Fein said there is a legal standard that would qualify the January 6 riots as an insurrection, and the question is whether Trump engaged in the insurrection – which, Fein argues, the Republican then-president’s incendiary speech did. “As the framers of the Constitution foresaw, anyone who would do this is a danger to the republic,” Fein said. “Donald Trump should not be allowed anywhere near public office again because the fact that he did this already indicates that the danger of him doing even worse in the future is a far greater risk than our country can tolerate.”

But Galvin, a Democrat, says Fein’s interpretation is incorrect. Galvin agrees the law could potentially apply to Trump based on evidence that has emerged about Trump’s role in the January 6 riots. But Galvin said the statute that defines an insurrection is in the criminal code, and to become ineligible for office on that basis requires a criminal conviction.

“You just can’t say ‘he must have done it,’” Galvin said. “I think it’s certainly deserving of review given the information that’s been created and presented so far. But it requires the Justice Department to begin and conclude a criminal investigation.”

Galvin said if the Department of Justice files criminal charges and Trump is convicted for participating in an insurrection, Trump could likely be disqualified from the ballot. Without that, Galvin said, he lacks authority to keep Trump off. Galvin said he would like to see the Justice Department review the issue and, if prosecutors bring charges, “do it sooner rather than later,” before a presidential campaign.

Free Speech for People has filed similar cases seeking to keep Republican members of Congress involved in the January 6 riots off the ballot, including Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, North Carolina Rep. Madison Cawthorn, and Arizona Reps. Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar. All the suits have been dismissed by judges.

University of Massachusetts Amherst political science professor Ray La Raja said he thinks it would be difficult to prove Trump engaged in insurrection. “The First Amendment gives people a lot of protections to protest, to speak out,” La Raja said. “Courts are going to be pretty hesitant to say where that crosses the line into an insurrection unless it’s clearly violent or provoking violence.” He said there will also be the question of who has authority to keep Trump off a ballot.

SHIRA SCHOENBERG

FROM COMMONWEALTH

Abortion deal: State lawmakers reached a compromise on late-term abortion language, discarding a provision inserted by the House that allowed the procedure after 24 weeks in cases of “severe” fatal anomaly and replacing it with “a grave fetal diagnosis that indicates an inability to sustain life outside the uterus without extraordinary medical intervention.”

– The wrangling over the words in a broader abortion rights bill was done to avert a potential veto by Gov. Charlie Baker, an abortion rights supporter who has raised concerns about some late-term abortion language in the past.

– Both branches are expected to vote on the compromise language this week and send the bill to Baker. The bill is arriving on his desk so late (the session ends Sunday) that the Legislature will be unable to override any veto. Read more.

Not giving up: Gov. Charlie Baker is continuing to push for a bill expanding the use of dangerousness hearings even though the Legislature sent it to a study, effectively killing it for this session. Baker held a roundtable with abused women who supported the bill, many of whom expressed anger about the Legislature’s action. But opponents of the bill, including the ACLU of Massachusetts and Jane Doe Inc, said killing the bill was the right thing to do. They said it dramatically expanded the ability of judges to hold people without bail. Read more.

Rules fight: A conservative advocacy group calls out a handful of Democratic legislators who early last year supported a rule providing more time to review a bill before voting on it and yet last week voted to take up a climate change bill immediately. Read more.

OPINION

Back to drawing board: Matt Darling, an employment fellow at the Niskanen Center, says Cambridge’s plan to give low-income families a $500-a-month cash benefit needs work. Read more.

FROM AROUND THE WEB

BEACON HILL

Boston Herald columnist Joe Battenfeld whacks Gov. Charlie Baker, writing that the “governor will go out the door an unpopular outsider in his own party and a powerless tool to Democratic legislators.” 

MUNICIPAL MATTERS  

The Supreme Judicial Court rules in favor of Boston in a dispute between Boston and Quincy over whether to rebuild a bridge to Long Island. The question before the court was whether Quincy’s denial of a key permit was superseded by a state decision. (Patriot Ledger)

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu vetoes a budget amendment that would have allocated $5 million in federal aid for a fieldhouse at Columbia Point, an initiative of the Martin Richard Foundation and the Boys and Girls Clubs of Dorchester. (Dorchester Reporter)

Heat islands have made some New Bedford neighborhoods significantly hotter than others. (New Bedford Light) 

HEALTH/HEALTH CARE

The fight over abortion shifts to crisis pregnancy centers. (Salem News)

A key part of an influential Alzheimer’s disease study may have been fabricated. (Boston Globe)

A lack of EMT staffing is beginning to affect ambulance service in some communities. (Salem News)

WASHINGTON/NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL

US officials are growing increasingly concerned about potential military action by China against Taiwan. (New York Times) 

Not a headline we’ve seen much lately: “Biden poised for big wins in Congress,” reads the Washington Post header reporting on looming legislative action on prescription drugs, chip manufacturing, and protection for same-sex marriage. 

ELECTIONS

US Rep. Richard Neal endorses Sen. Eric Lesser of Longmeadow in the Democratic primary for lieutenant governor. (Western Mass Politics and Insight)

Attorney General Maura Healey endorses Berkshire County DA Andrea Harrington in her Democratic primary race against Timothy Shugrue. (Berkshire Eagle)

The Globe runs back-to-back profiles of the two Democrats vying for Suffolk County district attorney, Kevin Hayden, who was appointed to the vacant post earlier this year, and Boston City Councilor Ricardo Arroyo. 

The state GOP has filed suit in federal court against Attorney General Maura Healey in connection with what it says is her “conspicuous” silence on the harassment of those gathering signatures to place a question on the November ballot repealing a state law allowing undocumented immigrants to get driver’s licenses. (Boston Herald) 

BUSINESS/ECONOMY

The state unemployment rate dropped to 3.7 percent in June. (Eagle-Tribune)

ARTS/CULTURE

Berkshire Museum taps Kimberly Bush Tomio, the director of museum services at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, as its new executive director. (Berkshire Eagle)

ICYMI, Joni Mitchell, who has looked at life from both sides following a 2015 brain aneurysm, steals the show with a surprise appearance over the weekend at the Newport Folk Festival. (NPR) 

TRANSPORTATION

MassLive considers what it might mean to fold the MBTA into the Department of Transportation. 

The T has another safety incident when a train unintentionally rolls from the rail yard onto a Red Line track. (MassLive)

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu calls for shutting down large portions of the MBTA to do extensive repair work. She said the T can no longer tinker around the edges at night or in short bursts. (WBUR)

Malden resident Jennifer Thomson-Sullivan pens a first-hand account of riding on the Orange Line train that caught fire while passing over the Mystic River – and her vanishing faith in the T. (Boston Globe). 

ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT

Beach access is becoming a hot issue across Massachusetts as more and more people want to visit the shore and municipalities on the water and the owners of beachfront homes seek to limit access. (WBUR)

Paul Sorvino, the actor who excelled at playing mobsters, dies at 83. (New York Times)