The primaries to choose the Republican Party’s nominee for the presidential race are underway. Former President Donald J. Trump already has one important win under his belt: a landslide victory in the Iowa caucuses. The New Hampshire primary is up next.
But as the primaries proceed, important constitutional questions loom in the background. Officials in Maine and Colorado have determined that based on the 14th Amendment the former president has engaged in insurrection and is therefore disqualified from being on the primary ballots in those states. Now the Supreme Court is poised to weigh in.
What do you think should happen? Should Mr. Trump, the current front-runner, be allowed to run for president? Or, did he disqualify himself because he incited an insurrection with his actions leading up to the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol?
In the article “Would Keeping Trump Off the Ballot Hurt or Help Democracy?” The Times explains why this issue is so complicated for many:
As the top elections official in Washington State, Steve Hobbs says he is troubled by the threat former President Donald J. Trump poses to democracy and fears the prospect of his return to power. But he also worries that recent decisions in Maine and Colorado to bar Mr. Trump from presidential primary ballots there could backfire, further eroding Americans’ fraying faith in U.S. elections.
“Removing him from the ballot would, on its face value, seem very anti-democratic,” said Mr. Hobbs, a Democrat who is in his first term as secretary of state. Then he added a critical caveat: “But so is trying to overthrow your country.”
Mr. Hobbs’s misgivings reflect deep divisions and unease among elected officials, democracy experts and voters over how to handle Mr. Trump’s campaign to reclaim the presidency four years after he went to extraordinary lengths in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election. While some, like Mr. Hobbs, think it best that voters settle the matter, others say that Mr. Trump’s efforts require accountability and should be legally disqualifying.
Here is the relevant language in the 14th Amendment, which was written after the Civil War:
No person shall be a senator or representative in Congress, or elector of president and vice president, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, 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. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
In “The Supreme Court Should Overturn the Colorado Ruling Unanimously,” Samuel Moyn, a professor of law at Yale, writes in favor of keeping Mr. Trump on the ballot:
When Donald Trump appeals the Colorado decision disqualifying him from the ballot in that state’s Republican primary, the Supreme Court should overturn the ruling unanimously.
Like many of my fellow liberals, I would love to live in a country where Americans had never elected Mr. Trump — let alone sided with him by the millions in his claims that he won an election he lost, and that he did nothing wrong afterward. But nobody lives in that America. For all the power the institution has arrogated, the Supreme Court cannot bring that fantasy into being. To bar Mr. Trump from the ballot now would be the wrong way to show him to the exits of the political system, after all these years of strife.
Some aspects of American election law are perfectly clear — like the rule that prohibits candidates from becoming president before they turn 35 — but many others are invitations to judges to resolve uncertainty as they see fit, based in part on their own politics. Take Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which blocks insurrectionists from running for office, a provision originally aimed at former Confederates in the wake of the Civil War. There may well be some instances in which the very survival of a democratic regime is at stake if noxious candidates or parties are not banned, as in West Germany after World War II. But in this case, what Section 3 requires is far from straightforward. Keeping Mr. Trump off the ballot could put democracy at more risk rather than less.
On the other hand, in “If Trump Is Not an Insurrectionist, What Is He?” the columnist Jamelle Bouie argues that Mr. Trump should be disqualified for running for president:
There is a real question of whether this attempt to protect American democracy — by removing a would-be authoritarian from the ballot — is itself a threat to American democracy. Will proponents and supporters of the 14th Amendment option effectively destroy the village in order to save it?
It may seem obvious, but we should remember that Trump is not an ordinary political figure. And try as some commentators might, there is no amount of smoke one could create — through strained counterfactuals, dire warnings of a slippery slope or outright dismissal of the events that make the Trump of 2024 a figure very different from the Trump of 2020 — that can obscure or occlude this basic fact.
In 2020, President Trump went to the voting public of the United States and asked for another four years in office. By 51 percent to 47 percent, the voting public of the United States said no. More important, Trump lost the Electoral College, 306 to 232, meaning there were enough of those voters in just the right states to deny him a second term.
The people decided. And Trump said, in so many words, that he didn’t care. What followed, according to the final report of the House select committee on Jan. 6, was an effort to overturn the result of the election.
Students, read the articles and Opinion essays and then tell us:
What is your reaction to the decisions in Colorado and Maine that have found Mr. Trump ineligible to be on those states’ primary ballots? Why?
Challenges to Donald Trump’s appearance on the ballot have been filed in more than 30 states, but many have been dismissed. As of Jan. 12, there were active challenges in at least 19 states, including lawsuits and formal complaints to election officials. What is your reaction to the campaigns to have Mr. Trump removed from the ballot?
Do you think removing Mr. Trump from the presidential ballot would strengthen American democracy, or hurt it? Do you agree more with Steve Hobbs, who thinks it’s best that voters settle the matter, or with Jamelle Bouie, who thinks that Mr. Trump disqualified himself by using the power of his office to try to overturn constitutional government in the United States? Why?
Do you think the 14th Amendment prohibits Mr. Trump from running for president because of his actions leading up to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol? Why or why not?
Mr. Trump currently faces 91 criminal charges, including several that address his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election and obstruct the certification of the electoral vote, but these cases have not yet gone to trial. Do you think the outcomes of these trials matter in deciding whether Mr. Trump should be disqualified from running for president? Why or why not?
What do you think the Supreme Court will say on this issue? How would you rule if you were a justice?
Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public and may appear in print.
Find more Student Opinion questions here. Teachers, check out this guide to learn how you can incorporate these prompts into your classroom.
