Top Democrat mulls plan to remove Trump from ballot after Supreme Court ruling

Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland has said that he is preparing legislation that would disqualify insurrectionists from seeking office – just hours after the US Supreme Court ruled that only Congress has the power to do so.

On Monday morning, the court decided that Congress, and not states, could remove a presidential candidate from the ballot under Section Three of the 14th Amendment, known as the “insurrection clause”.

Shortly after, Mr Raskin told CNN that he and his colleagues, including Eric Swalwell and Debbie Wasserman Schultz, were going to revise a bill that would create a pathway for Congress to ban those who participated in insurrection from taking office.

“The Supreme Court punted and said it’s up to Congress to act and so I’m working with a number of my colleagues… to revive legislation that we had to set up a process by which we could determine that someone who committed insurrection is disqualified by Section Three of the 14th Amendment,” Mr Raskin said.

He later told Axios that the bill would be paired with a resolution to declare January 6 2021 an insurrection and those who participated as having “engaged in insurrection”.

The Independent has reached out to Mr Raskin’s office for comment.

Such a declaration would include former president Donald Trump who became the centre of the Supreme Court’s decision after challengers in several states moved to disqualify him from the ballot citing his involvement in the Capitol riot.

Mr Raskin said the House of Representatives had already previously voted to impeach Mr Trump due to his incendiary comments that allegedly motivated a group of rioters to interrupt Congress’s certification of 2020 election results that day.

But more than three years later, it’s unclear if the House would vote the same or if Speaker Mike Johnson would even allow Mr Raskin to introduce the revised legislation.

Regardless, Mr Raskin, who is a member of the House Oversight Committee and was also on the House Select Committee to investigate January 6, said the revised legislation is something “we need to focus on”.

The Supreme Court’s decision on Monday struck down the challenges to Mr Trump’s ballot eligibility right before Super Tuesday when the largest number of primaries or caucuses are being held.

In their decision, justices argued that Congress is responsible for enforcing Section Three of the 14th Amendment which prohibits any individual who engaged in rebellion or aided enemies of the United States from holding office.

Mr Raskin said he disagreed with the court’s interpretation, saying “other parts of the 14th Amendment are self-executing”.

“People can go to court and say that something violates equal protection even if there is not a federal statute that allows them to do so,” Mr Raskin told CNN.

Meanwhile, Mr Trump and many of his allies celebrated the win. The former president called it a “big win for America” claiming it would protect him and future presidents from having states wrongfully remove them from the ballot.