The Democrats in Congress are already formulating plans to prevent Trump from being re-elected.
Impeaching Trump, using the 25th Amendment, or taking any other political step to remove him from office is not something anyone is interested in doing. It is a literal interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Thus they are taking a risk by assuming they are not covered by it.
Congress can prevent insurrectionists from running for president under the Fourteenth Amendment.
After taking an oath of office as a Senator or Representative, a Presidential or Vice Presidential elector, or an administrative or judicial officer of any state, no one who has participated in a rebellion or retribution is eligible for election or retention in the office is not suitable for election or retention in office.
To remove “such impediment,” two-thirds of each house of Congress would have to approve it.
House Democrats have thus filed legislation to label Trump, an insurrectionist.
In the words of Rhode Island Democrat David Cicilline, “Donald Trump very publicly began an uprising to erase the legitimate and fair outcomes of the 2020 election” on January 6, 2021. The government has no need for someone who helps to topple it.
According to ABC News, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi expressed doubts about Donald Trump’s leadership skills a year ago.
A 28-page bill drafted by the Democrats opens with the lines “Congress finds the following.”
As required by the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution and the Electoral Count Act of 1887, Mr. Donald J. Trump did engage in insurrection against the United States by mobilizing, inciting, and assisting those who attacked the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, to disrupt the certification of the 2020 Presidential Election. A House committee found Trump guilty of “high crimes and misdemeanors,” and on February 13, 2021, the House voted to impeach him. The Senate voted 57 to 43 to find him guilty of inciting a rebellion.
Impeachment proceedings against Trump began last year after he made revolutionary statements. Trump was not arrested despite Congress’s best efforts. It was a close vote in the Senate, with 91% in favor.
Several formerly sworn members of Congress attempted to return to Congress in the years before the Civil War after having defected to the Confederacy and aided a revolution.
Although the 14th Amendment was not an immediate solution to the problem, Congress eventually concluded it was the best option.
One voter has been denied the right to vote due to a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Democrat from Wisconsin, Representative Victor Berger, was kicked out of office in 1919 for breaking the Espionage Act due to his socialist beliefs.
A New Mexico federal court determined in September that a man who had participated in a disturbance at the state capitol was ineligible to run for county commissioner under the Fourteenth Amendment.