donald trump

A lawyer from Palm Beach County has filed one of the first legal challenges to disqualify Donald Trump from the 2024 presidential race under a clause in the U.S. Constitution‘s 14th Amendment.

Boynton Beach tax attorney Lawrence Caplan filed the challenge in federal court in the Southern District of Florida citing the amendment’s “disqualification clause” for those who engage in insurrections and rebellion against the United States. The amendment was ratified in 1868 after the Civil War, during Reconstruction, and also addressed the citizenship status of freed slaves and the re-integration of the defeated Confederate states back into the Union.

Applying the 14th Amendment’s disqualification rule to Trump has been a rising talking point this month. Legal scholars, including from conservative corners, have advocated for it. And state elections officials have conceded they are having discussions about how they would respond if a challenge is lodged.

But constitutional scholar Kevin Wagner said invoking the amendment to kick Trump off the ballot is an endeavor that faces significant legal, constitutional and political hurdles.

“There’s a legitimate argument that one can make surrounding the plain wording of the 14th Amendment and the accusations of what the president did on Jan. 6,” said Wagner, a professor of political science at Florida Atlantic University. “But I think it’s a harder lift than people think and at the end of the day you have to find someone that’s willing to enforce it.”

Reconstruction era 14th Amendment punished insurrections, rebellions

The amendment’s Section 3 addresses the disqualification of any U.S. citizen from holding office if “having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution