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Louisiana has become the latest state to judge whether Donald Trump should appear on their ballot after a suburban New Orleans woman filed a lawsuit similar to several other states. Ashley Reeb, of Chalmette, filed the suit on Dec. 22 in East Baton Rouge Parish in an effort to block Trump from their state's March primary. As in other lawsuits nationwide, Reeb argues that Trump's actions on January 6, 2021 amounted to insurrection and therefore disqualify him from running for president.
In Colorado, the state Supreme Court ruled on December 19 that Trump was ineligible to vote. It is expected that the case will be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Reeb's lawsuit follows similar language to those in Colorado and elsewhere. “Both Trump's actions (participating in an insurrection) and his inaction (providing aid and comfort to insurrectionists) on January 6, 2021 disqualify him from holding any office in/under the United States,” the statement said. Reeb's lawsuit.
Her case was filed against Louisiana Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin. Reeb, whose social media is full of posts lamenting the Jan. 6 unrest, said she was inspired by conservative legal scholar J. Michael Luttig, who said the argument for removing Trump from the ballot was “unassailable.” used to be. “I have tremendous respect for Judge Luttig,” she wrote on Facebook. “Understanding this is what drives my actions.”
Analysts are divided over whether the legal arguments surrounding Article 14 and Trump's actions are sound. But Robert Collins, a political analyst at Dillard University, told Fox News that he thought Reeb's petition was “quite a gamble.” He pointed out that Trump has been impeached and faces a federal lawsuit for attempting to undermine the election, but has not been criminally convicted.
“It could be a different situation if he had been criminally convicted in a court of rioting,” he said. “To interpret that a president is guilty of an insurrection and remove him from the ballot, I think most justices are simply not on board ideologically.” LSU political science professor James Stoner agreed that the lack of a conviction likely undermines the petition.
“The whole meaning of the rule of law is that a prosecutor can't just jail you because he thinks you did something wrong,” Stoner said. 'That's just the first step. The public prosecutor files charges and then it has to go to trial. That's what happened with Trump's impeachment. The impeachment is a prosecution, but he has not been convicted of those crimes.”
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