(RepublicanDaily.org) – As former President Donald Trump battles a number of civil and criminal court trials, legislators in Hawaii are working on passing a bill that could keep him off the ballot in 2024. Last week, Senate Bill 2392 survived a procedural vote that will allow it to advance and potentially eventually become law. The bill was approved narrowly by the Hawaii State Senate Judiciary Committee – so narrowly, in fact, that had one legislator not turned up to vote, it wouldn’t have survived at all.
Under the proposed legislation, former President Trump would be disqualified from the ballot over claims that he incited an “insurrection” on January 6, 2021.
The bill still faces an uphill battle before it becomes law, however. Opponents of the proposed law have described it as “tyrannical” and an effort to prevent Republicans from winning later this year. More than 300 complaints were filed with the state legislature after the bill moved forward.
The man behind the bill, Democratic State Senator Karl Rhoads, defended the move and stressed the importance of establishing a way to disqualify Trump given that Hawaii does not have a legal process to stop him at present.
Not the Only State
More than a dozen states have proposed legislation, or taken other steps, to prevent the former president from appearing on the ballots. States that have attempted to stop Trump from appearing on either the primary ballot or the general election ballot papers include Arizona, Alaska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
Most efforts make reference to Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, which bans officials who have engaged in “insurrection” from holding office. However, legal scholars and judges disagree on whether or not the founding fathers intended for this legislation to apply to a president.
Others argue that the former president did not engage in an “insurrection.”
Colorado’s efforts are already potentially coming undone, however – and if Colorado fails to convince the United States Supreme Court that Trump should be removed from the ballot, then all other states are likely to fail in their efforts, too. On Thursday, February 8, the U.S. Supreme Court expressed skepticism of Colorado’s effort to ban Trump from the state’s 2024 GOP primary ballot.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett argued that it “just doesn’t seem like a state call,” while Justice Elena Kagan asked why a single state should be able to make the call for “the rest of the nation.”
It could, therefore, be a matter of weeks before Hawaii’s efforts come undone.
Copyright 2024, RepublicanDaily.org
