The campaign to have former President Donald J. Trump removed from the ballot over his efforts to remain in power after the 2020 election has kicked into high gear, with decisions in two states, Maine and Colorado, barring him from the primary ballots.
Challenges are still underway in many more states, based on an obscure clause of a constitutional amendment enacted after the Civil War that disqualifies government officials who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” from holding office.
Over the years, the courts and Congress have done little to clarify how that criterion should apply, adding urgency to the calls for the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on the politically explosive dispute before the upcoming election.
Here’s what to know about the challenges.
Which states have already decided the matter?
The Maine secretary of state said on Thursday that Mr. Trump did not qualify for the Republican primary ballot there because of his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. She agreed with a handful of citizens who claimed that he had incited an insurrection and was thus barred from seeking the presidency again under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.
In a written decision, the secretary of state, Shenna Bellows, a Democrat, said that while no one in her position had ever barred a candidate from the ballot based on Section 3 of the amendment, “no presidential candidate has ever before engaged in insurrection.”
Hours later, the secretary of state in California announced that Mr. Trump would remain on the ballot in the nation’s most populous state, where election officials have limited power to remove candidates.
In Colorado, the State Supreme Court decided last week in a 4-to-3 ruling that the former president should not be allowed to appear on the primary ballot there because he engaged in insurrection. The ruling did not address the general election.
The justices in Colorado said that if their ruling were to be appealed to the U.S….