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Some Democrats, independents and even never-Trump Republicans here in Minnesota and elsewhere may be overly enthused with the prospect of using the insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment to keep former President Donald Trump off the ballot.

They envision achieving that objective by invoking the portion of that post-Civil War measure that bars anyone from holding elective office who has engaged in an insurrection or aiding others in doing so.

They could be flirting with fire.

Following a civil case initiated in Colorado early in September and serving as a forerunner for similar thrusts taken in other Trump-hostile jurisdictions, a legal proceeding was initiated here in the Twin Cities shortly after Labor Day seeking to prevent the 45th president from becoming the 47th. It asks to bar Steve Simon, Minnesotas secretary of state, from placing the former president on the ballot for the upcoming Republican primary in March and the election next November, if he is endorsed by the Republican Party.

The claimants in the Minnesota case are operating under the umbrella of a national group known as Free Speech for People. They include high-profile heavyweights no less than Paul Anderson, a highly respected former state Supreme Court justice and a pre-MAGA moderate Republican; Joan Growe, a former secretary of state and long-time progressive DFLer, and a few other political middleweights.

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Their case has been expedited and scheduled for hearing before the state Supreme Court on Nov. 2, a year and three days before the 2024 presidential election. The jurists in St. Paul are likely to issue a ruling upon the case soon thereafter, probably before the Jan. 5, 2024, cut-off date for primary ballot eligibility. Unless leapfrogged by another state, the Minnesota decision may be the first one in the nation addressing the insurrection issue.

Its ruling would only apply to the ballot here in Minnesota, but it would create a nonbinding precedent to be used as guidance for upcoming judicial decisions in other states.

If successful, the larger effort at candidate suppression would eliminate Trumps aspirations to return to the White House a second time the way another native New Yorker did: Grover Cleveland, the 22nd and 24th president, who split his two terms in the late 19th century around an election defeat.

But the Minnesota case and similar ones sprouting up across portions of the nation are rife with hazards. One is that the litigation plays right into what Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida described in the 2016 presidential primary campaign as the unusually small hands of the ex-president.

It allows Trump and his supporters to point to efforts to keep him off ballots as another example of weaponization of the legal system and an attack on his followers ability to exercise their rights to vote for him. That, in turn, helps his narrative that he is the victim of forces out to punish him and suppress his supporters, an assertion that has substantial appeal to Trump acolytes.

The keep-Trump-off-the-ballot movement is flying blind in uncharted territory. The prospect of the insurrection provision sidelining the former president from returning to the White House, let alone make it onto the ballot to get there, is attractive to some academics and pundits.

While simmering for some time, the insurrection clause concept turned into a realistic possibility spurred by the odd couple authorship of a piece by high-profile legal scholars like retired federal appellate judge Michael Lustig, a conservative icon, in concert with Harvard Law Schools Lawrence Tribe, a celebrated liberal lion, as well as an academic paper by Prof. Michael Paulson of St. Thomas University Law School in the Twin Cities, among other legal luminaries. Even the leader of the arch right-wing Federalist Society, the greenhouse for conservative judges, initially endorsed the idea, before the organization recanted a couple of weeks ago when it saw that the concept it supported was actually proceeding.

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But the effort to disenfranchise Trump-inclined voters may not be as appealing to elected officials and judges who must decide whether to allow him to be on the ballots in the various states where challenges have been lodged.

The most formidable hurdle is that the issue will end up, sooner or later, before the U.S. Supreme Court, a Trump-packed tribunal that is unlikely to ban him from the ballot.

The chances of success might be greater here in Minnesota. After Secretary of State Simon, who certifies electoral candidates, declined to bar the ex-president from ballot, the matter landed in the lap of the state Supreme Court, which is in transition due to the recent retirement of Chief Justice Lori Gildea and replacement by Justice Natalie Hudson, who now heads a tribunal that consists of six DFL appointees and a single one from the GOP.

But even with Minnesotas liberal-imbued high court, it might be an uphill fight for the challengers.

In 2020, an erstwhile obscure Republican candidate sued to be placed on the primary ballot after the state party denied him access to run against the sole GOP-approved candidate, none other than the-ex president.

The case, de la Fuentes v. Simon, reached the state Supreme Court on the eve of the primary, where it floundered. The court ruled it would not intervene on grounds that the parties decide whom to place before the voters.

Gildea, who retired at the end of last month after 13 years at the helm, was troubled by that challenge, pointing out at the hearing that there is something disturbing about the proposition that courts can effectively control whom voters get to vote for.

The stop-Trump advocates run the risk of the same rationale being invoked against them in a different context, in the new Trump insurrection ineligibility case to be heard next month.

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But whatever lower tribunals, state or federal here or elsewhere adjudicate the issue, it will probably be up to the U.S. Supreme Court to come up with a solution. Its unlikely to be favorable ruling for the anti-Trump challengers in the absence of a prior judicial declaration by a lower court that the ex-president engaged in the prohibited conduct.

In addition to the distinct potential for defeat in court, the anti-Trump ballot brigade may lose in the court of public opinion.

Marshall H. Tanick

Like his quartet of indictments, a legal challenge on insurrection grounds could redound to the benefit of the ex-presidents popularity, at least within his party, not to mention the millions of dollars he will gather from small donor contributors to wage his ballot battles.

So, the insurrection-disqualification advocates ought to be careful because they are sparking a blaze that might burn them badly. If they dont pay attention to this warning, theres another admonition adage they ought to heed: If you try to take out the king, dont miss.

Marshall H. Tanick is a constitutional law attorney in the Twin Cities.

If youre interested in joining the discussion, consider writing a Community Voices commentary or counterpoint. (For more information about Community Voices, see our Submission Guidelines.)

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The risky effort to keep Donald Trump off the 2024 ballot - MinnPost

When former President Trump hysterically called for shoplifters to be shot in a speech last week before California Republicans, we know who he thinks hes talking about: Black and Brown people. We will immediately stop all of the pillaging and theft, Trump said. Very simply: If you rob a store, you can fully expect to be shot as you are leaving that store. Shot!

It continues more than four decades of Trump unapologetically calling for capital punishment or for the accused to be kneecapped way beyond for what crimes usually call for. Those who have a long memory about Trump will recall his full-page ads in New York newspapers 34 years ago calling for the death penalty in after the Central Park rape that wrongfully sent Black and Brown men to prison.

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Now this, as the former president remains the clear front runner for the Republican nomination to return to the White House. Now, the easy thing here is to keep going about his ongoing efforts to place the political mark of the beast on Black and Brown people. But his fascist rant to bring the full weight of lethal federal law enforcement against shoplifters carries a peculiar irony. Trump is so unhinged, he forgot that most shoplifters are White.

Despite the decades of Black people being profiled in stores as possible shoplifters (and being shot and killed, as was John Crawford in 2014 for holding an unboxed pellet gun in the sporting goods section of a Walmart outside Dayton Ohio), much of the loot that leaks out of stores iare in the backpacks and purses of the least profiled.

According to a 2014 study in the American Journal of Psychiatry, 77.5 percent of shoplifters are White, significantly above their 59 percent of the national population. Only 8 percent of shoplifters are Black and only another 8 percent are Latino, well below their shares of the national population. That study said, Shoplifting was significantly more common in individuals with at least some college education, among those with individual incomes over $35,000 and family incomes over $70,000.

Going even farther back, a 1986 Washington Post story on shoplifting in the Washington, D.C. area found that while young Black males were routinely put under heavy surveillance in stores, 71 percent of people arrested for shoplifting were from middle- and upper-income brackets. That story said:

If there was a profile of a shoplifter, it might show a woman from a middle-income group, who has either a high school diploma or college degree. In reality, the statistics show that shoplifting cuts across age, educational and income levels. All available evidence suggests, in fact, that young black males, as a group, between the ages of 18 and 25, pose no greater threat as shoplifters than most groups.

In a 2013 interview on National Public Radio, Rutgers University marketing professor Jerome Williams said, About 70 percent of all the shoplifting in this country is done by whites. And in fact, if you look at store shrinkage or loss, most of the loss is done by employees and not by customers. And in some states where weve looked at the data, what we call the modal group thats most likely to shoplift is white women in their 40s and 50s.

When Trump went off about shooting shoplifters, his audience of California Republicans cheered as if a football team scored a touchdown. That was because in that same speech, he referred to California as a dumping ground. Trump has long used the phrase to refer to Mexico dumping its worst elements into the United States.

The crowd clearly assumed that shoplifters in the crosshairs of another Trump White House would be Brown and Black. The data says otherwise. If Trump really means what he says, hes about to mow down a whole lot of White housewives.

Derrick Z. Jackson is a former Boston Globe columnist and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in commentary.

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Donald Trump Says Shoplifters Should be Shot, but Does He Know Who Most Shoplifters Are? - Yahoo News

Are pro-lifers going to allow themselves to be a cheap date? said Patrick Brown, a fellow with the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Centers Life and Family Initiative. Are they going to sit back and take it when candidates are denigrating the cause they dedicated their life to?

Trumps attempt to have it both ways on the fraught issue calling himself the most pro-life president ever and taking credit for the fall of Roe v. Wade while also shunning the priorities of the anti-abortion groups that helped elect him in 2016 has exposed those groups struggle for relevance in a lopsided primary and highlighted ongoing divisions inside the movement.

Donald Trump has called himself the most pro-life president ever while also shunning the priorities of the anti-abortion groups that helped elect him in 2016. | Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Some groups say they will give the frontrunner more time to clarify his position and expect he will eventually support a national abortion ban. Other groups, anxious about Trump watering down his abortion stance, are mulling various tactics, including making a primary endorsement, protesting outside his upcoming events, and redirecting their campaign budget to down ballot races.

He wont feel pressure until its applied, and were willing to apply it, said Kristi Hamrick, the chief policy strategist with Students for Life of America. You cannot ignore the human rights issue of our time and still get our vote.

Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America confirmed to POLITICO that it is moving ahead with plans to spend more than the $78 million it shelled out on the 2022 election cycle to turn out anti-abortion rights voters in 2024. But a leader within the organization acknowledged the posture of the GOPs runaway contender makes their work harder.

Looking at a general, hes going to need all Republicans to come home if hes going to beat Joe Biden, Billy Valentine, SBAs vice president of political affairs, said. Hes going to need the base in order to win ultimately, and hes going to need a clear position. In the absence of a clear position, the Democrats are going to define him.

Other GOP presidential candidates have aligned themselves with SBAs call for a federal ban, but the organization is boxed in by Trumps dominant lead and is unlikely to endorse, several of its leaders told POLITICO.

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, said he and other anti-abortion leaders have privately spoken with Trump and his campaign and are confident that he will eventually champion their calls for state and national bans.

Yet Trump handily won the Family Research Councils straw poll on Saturday even after he painted the issue as an electoral loser and rejected the groups call for federal abortion limits during a Friday speech to the groups annual conference in Washington D.C.

Politically, its very tough, he told the audience. We had midterms, and this was an issue.

Ahead of the anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision overturning Roe v. Wade, the DNC launched a billboard in Times Square highlighting Donald Trump's support for a national abortion ban. | Roy Rochlin/Getty Images

His opponents for the GOP nomination, seeing an opening to pry away conservative voters, moved quickly to draw a contrast.

I dont know how you can even make the claim that youre somehow pro-life if youre criticizing states for enacting pro-life protections for babies that have heartbeats, Trump campaign rival Ron DeSantis told a radio host in the early voting state of Iowa on Monday. Its a window into how hes changing as hes running this campaign, and I think hes changing in a way that is not consistent with the values of the people in Iowa.

I think all pro-lifers should know that hes preparing to sell you out, DeSantis, the governor of Florida, added.

Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and former Vice President Mike Pence also rushed to attack Trump for refusing to back a 15-week national ban, with Pence accusing him of trying to marginalize the cause of life after his own speech to the Family Research Council.

In response to criticisms from DeSantis and others, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung touted Trumps record on abortion.

Nominating pro-life federal judges and Supreme Court justices that overturned Roe v. Wade, which others have tried for over 50 years, ending taxpayer funded abortions, [reinstating] the Mexico City Policy that protects the life of the unborn abroad, and many other actions that championed the life of the unborn, Cheung said.

Several conservative movement leaders told POLITICO that while Trump remains popular, his post-White House words have forced them to question how much of an ally he would be if elected and how they can pull him back in their direction.

Trumps base is pretty solid, but this is one thing that can really shake his base unless its a pure cult of personality and not one of principle, said John Stemberger, president of the Florida Family Policy Council and author of Legacy of Life: Honoring 50 of the greatest pro-life leaders of the last 50 years.

Its going to be a real test for pro-lifers that support him, added Stemberger, who likes DeSantis but wants him to commit to signing a federal anti-abortion law. Its just stunning to me that hes ignoring the primary issue of social conservatives and Christians.

Many conservatives also took issue with Trumps insistence in a Sunday interview on Meet the Press that he would be able to negotiate a deal on abortion with Democrats and settle the issue once and for all.

One anti-abortion group, the Human Coalition Action, blasted him for seeking compromises on the amount of mass death we find legally acceptable, while Terry Schilling, the president of the American Principles Project, poured cold water on the idea even as he praised Trumps anti-abortion record.

Democrats are never going to let voters forget that he overturned Roe, he said. He cant pretend hes going to come out with a plan theyre going to like. They dont like him and never will.

Schilling added that many anti-abortion rights leaders are hesitant to speak up about these concerns well aware that Trump has most likely secured the nomination with or without their support.

I have friends in the movement who are keeping their powder dry because they dont want to ruin their ability to influence him, he said. When you attack someone unfairly, it just burns bridges.

Kristan Hawkins, the president of Students for Life of America, also sees Trumps pledge to negotiate a compromise as unrealistic, at best, but acknowledges its likely to appeal to a significant number of voters.

I can see why, for people who arent involved in the pro-life movement, that sounds like a really good thing, she said. Theyre thinking, Thank God. Hes going to take away this issue that divides us. I hate the fact that when I turn on my TV, theyre saying the word abortion. I just dont want to talk about this anymore. But he just cant do it, because there are lives at stake.

Some Democrats and abortion rights activists are also worried Trumps calls for compromise and moderation could win people over. They scrambled over the past week to remind voters of Trumps staunch anti-abortion rights record during his first term.

NARAL, which this week changed its name to Reproductive Freedom For All, called Trump a skilled bluffer and said his tack to the center reveals an awareness that support for abortion rights has climbed since Roe fell and the issue has the power to decide elections.

Its clear Republicans are reading the same polls we are and know its a toxic issue for them, said Ryan Stitzlein, the groups vice president of political and government relations. The fact they havent landed on a unified strategy shows they dont know how to handle this. So you have candidates scrubbing their websites or refusing to talk about it, and you have people like Trump trying to portray themselves as a moderate.

Unsure how to bring Trump back into their fold, anti-abortion rights advocates warn that while this tack to the center might win over some voters, it will lose him the support of the ones he needs most.

Pro-lifers are not going to vote for Joe Biden, but we need to give them a reason to vote at all, Perkins said. Donald Trump has a lot of capital with conservatives, but we saw in the last election how narrow it can be. Every vote counts.

CLARIFICATION: The group that criticized Donald Trump for seeking to compromise with Democrats is the Human Coalition Action, a 501(c)4.

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Vivek Ramaswamy sat sipping his decaffeinated green tea in the center of a Capitol Hill hotels restaurant. He was extolling the awesome powers of the federal executive, which he insists would allow a President Ramaswamy to shed 75% of the federal workforce and reorganize the bureaucracy in ways that would make the most senior McKinsey bros giddy. It was obvious this wasnt the first time he was running this deck, even if no laptops, tablets, or projectors were in sight.

But, when I pushed back on his argument, making the case that if presidents are empowered to unilaterally slash and burn entire agencies, then they also can dramatically expand government just as easily, Ramaswamy didnt respond like the typical presidential candidates. Instead of simply repeating his own point or waiving away mine, the 38-year-old paused and gave the matter careful consideration.

If you're coming in from that angle, he told me, I would actually answer the question a little bit differently. Which is what he did, leaning back a little before explaining why he didnt think the executive power he hopes to wield goes in both directions.

It's different if you're actually shutting down agencies that Congress never authorized, he continued. It's a one-way ratchet.

Nuanced. Careful. Reasonable. It also may be complete hogwash that wouldnt pass muster with even the current Supreme Court. Nonetheless, the conversation cut directly against the image of Ramaswamy to this point. On the trail, in ubiquitous media appearances, and on the first debate stage, Ramaswamy often comes off as a brash bully, a privileged prig with a chip on his shoulder and wokeness in his snipers scope, a candidate who seethes with contempt for expertise or experience.

His detractors have assessed that Ramaswamy will say and do whatever is needed to please the audience before him. But that wasnt the guy sitting across from me, by now picking at a plate of spaghetti and snacking on deviled eggs. Here, it was a Socratic seminar on the promise and limits of government, the kind of dialogue that doesnt necessarily do well on a soapbox at the Iowa State Fair. Ramaswamys ability to transition so seamlessly between those two aspects of his personality explains, at least in part, why he may be the most interesting and unknowable factor in the unfolding fight for the future of the GOP.

Republicans in 2016 nominated a candidate who also seemed to lack any ideological core but knew how to put on a show, a walking contradiction of a man who could win over the Christian Right and white women voters, despite being a thrice-married philanderer who bragged about sexually assaulting women.

Why wouldnt the modern GOP at least consider someone who openly advertises the same intellectual flexibility, readiness to fight, and disregard for consistency? Especially now that their first foray into nominated nihilism finds himself indicted in four separate criminal cases?

Ramaswamy, for his part, is careful here. Publicly, he is perhaps Donald Trumps most loyalif lonelydefender. From the start of his nascent run, he was careful to stand next to Trump and Trumpism, recognizing its potency. When the FBI raided Trumps Florida club, Ramaswamy had Trumps back. When the charges started to come, Ramaswamy screamed about a weaponized Department of Justice and sounded every bit like a mob boss hinting that it sure would be unfortunate if loyalty mattered for nothing.

Heck, Ramaswamy even chose the office of Trumps unofficial braintrust last week to make a major policy speech about the hows of a Ramaswamy agenda.

And there was a central contradiction of Ramaswamy. While he professes contempt for the power centers of D.C., he really wants them to at least acknowledge him, even if that takes plenty of hyperbole delivered through a smirk.

Ramaswamy is due to deliver his next big speech on Thursday in Ohio. The topic: how the U.S. can win its technology rivalry with China. A week later will come the second GOP debate, where he may once again find himself ganged up on by his rivals, who dont even try to hide how little they think of him.

Still, Ramaswamy holds a talent here. Whether or not Trump sees the 2024 race through, Ramaswamy may well be his heir apparent. Unless he wants to cash in and disappear, he isnt going anywhere any time soon.

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When Donald Trump sat down for an interview with Meet the Press that aired on Sunday, host Kristen Welker asked him, When you go to bed at night, do you worry about going to jail? Trump responded: No, I dont really. I dont even think about it. Im built a little differentlyI dont even think about it. But according to a new report, the four-times indicted ex-president has very much thought about the prospect of going to prison, and in fact, has some very specific concerns about doing time.

Rolling Stone reportsthat over the past several months, Trump has taken to asking members of his inner circle if they think hell be forced to wear one of those jumpsuits behind bars. (Whether he is worried about having to trade his business attire and golf duds for classic prison garb in general, or if it is the idea of an orange jumpsuit in particular, which would likely clash with his complexion and give rise to untold late-night jokes, that has him uneasy, is unclear.) In addition, according to the outlet, the ex-president has wondered aloud if:

- Hell be sentenced to do time in a club fed-style prison, i.e., a relatively cushy place white-collar criminals have historically been sent to, or if hell be sent to a bad prison

- If there is a chance hed get lucky and only get house arrest

- If the government would try to strip him of Secret Service protection

- What would happen if he were convicted and sentenced, but also reelected?

Meanwhile, as 2024 rival Will Hurd noted in August, Trumps decision to run again is very likely based in part on the calculation that getting reelected would be his get-out-of-jail-free card. Hes only running in order to stay out of prison, Hurd told Bloomberg Radio. (Meanwhile, in 2022, before hed officially announced his candidacy, a source familiar with Trumps thinking told Rolling Stone that the ex-president hadspoken about how when you are the president of the United States, it is tough for politically motivated prosecutors to get to you. This person added that Trump says when [not if] he is president again, a new Republican administration will put a stop to the [Justice Department] investigation that he views as the Biden administration working to hit him with criminal chargesor even put him and his people in prison.)

Trump is currently facing a whopping 91 felony counts across four criminal cases. In June, after he was charged by the Justice Department for his handling of classified documents, Fox Newslegal analystJonathan Turleyopined, All the government has to do is stick the landing on one count, and [Trump] could have a terminal sentence. Youre talking about crimes that have a 10- or 20-year period as a maximum.

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Donald Trump once again brags about his role in turning the clock back to 1974

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