Iowa bill aims to clear path for Trump by banning 14th Amendment primary ballot challenges

The Iowa Secretary of State’s office has filed a bill to prevent Iowans from challenging Donald Trump’s place on the 2024 general election ballot on 14th Amendment grounds.

The former president, who won victories in Iowa and New Hampshire this month, is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination in 2024.

But Trump has faced challenges to his candidacy in more than 30 states, including Colorado and Maine, which have said he should be removed from their primary ballots under Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment that bars officials from holding office again if they “have engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the United States.

The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments on Trump’s appeal of the Colorado challenge starting Feb. 8, which revolved around his actions leading up to and during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, and the court’s decision could determine what happens in other states.

If the bill in Iowa passed, Iowans could still challenge Trump’s eligibility in court, but not through the state’s law for objecting to candidates appearing on the ballot.

How would the Iowa bill limit ballot challenges for Trump?

The bill filed by Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate, a Republican, would limit the grounds for any challenges to a presidential candidate in the general election.

Political parties must submit a certificate with the names of their presidential and vice presidential candidates to the Iowa Secretary of State’s office 81 days before the general election.

Under the bill, challenges to presidential candidates would be limited to whether that certificate meets all the legal requirements.

“It would pretty clearly foreclose any challenge to a presidential candidate for being not qualified under the United States Constitution,” Derek Muller, an election law professor at the University of Notre Dame Law School, said of the bill. “So it would be designed to foreclose a challenge like those filed in Colorado in Maine.”

Under current law, Iowans can challenge primary and general election candidates’ eligibility to appear on the ballot on a variety of grounds.

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Ashley Hunt, a spokesperson for Pate, said current law provides a presumption of validity to the paperwork candidates file to run for office and limits what issues are eligible for objection.

“This simply extends that same standard to all candidates explicitly,” she said in an email.

Asked how the bill would affect any potential challenges to Trump, Hunt said it would clarify Iowa’s objection process.

“To the best of our knowledge, in 2015, Mr. Trump met the Constitutional requirements to be president and continues to do so,” Hunt said in an email. “Mr. Trump has not been convicted of anything that disqualifies him to be president. This bill simply helps clarify the objection process for Iowa.”

Iowa bill would remove felony ban for federal candidates

The Iowa bill would also limit the grounds for challenging all federal candidates, including for the presidency and Congress, by restricting those challenges to the candidates' age, residency, citizenship, and whether their nominating papers meet all the legal requirements.

Hunt said eligibility requirements for Congress and the presidency are laid out in the U.S. Constitution, and states do not have the authority to place additional requirements on federal candidates as they can with candidates for state office.

Iowa law requires candidates for all offices, including federal offices, to attest that they are aware that they are disqualified from holding office if they have been convicted of a felony. The bill would remove that requirement for federal candidates for Congress and the presidency.

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Trump currently faces 91 felony charges in four criminal cases around the country.

“The U.S. Constitution sets eligibility requirements for Congress and POTUS,” Hunt said in an email. “This update ensures affidavits comply with those requirements.”

Muller said he sees the bill’s language as more of a technical cleanup.

“You can’t challenge somebody for being a felon for federal office because that’s not one of the qualifications listed in the Constitution,” Muller said. “So this is designed to pull that out and say this is not a basis for an objection.”

The text of the pre-filed bill from the secretary of state’s office appeared on the Iowa Legislature’s website on Jan. 18. It has not yet been given a bill number or assigned to a committee.

Under current Iowa law, objections to candidates must be made in writing. A three-member State Objection Panel, comprised of the state secretary, the state auditor, and the attorney general, hears the challenges.

Stephen Gruber-Miller covers the Iowa Statehouse and politics for the Register. He can be reached by email at sgrubermil@registermedia.com or by phone at 515-284-8169. Follow him on Twitter at @sgrubermiller.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Iowa bill would bar 14th Amendment challenges to Trump's candidacy