Oregon’s Secretary of State won’t remove Trump from primary ballot
By Joe Hathaway on Friday, December 1st, 2023 in More Top Stories Northeastern Oregon News
SALEM — Oregon’s Secretary of State says she won’t take former President Donald Trump off the ballot for the Oregon Republican primary.
The announcement comes as many voters have contacted the state on the issue, according to the Secretary of State’s Office. The political group Free Speech for People has led the charge to bar Trump from the ballot in Oregon and ballots nationwide, claiming that the former president violated the 14th Amendment. The amendment prohibits anyone who previously took an oath to support the U.S. Constitution and then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof” from holding any federal office.
The group argues it applies to Trump because he swore an oath to uphold the Constitution as president and then engaged in insurrection by inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
“Oregon law does not give me the authority to determine the qualifications of candidates in a presidential primary,” said Secretary LaVonne Griffin-Valade. “I will follow our usual process and expect to put Donald Trump on the primary ballot unless a court directs me otherwise.
According to the Secretary of State’s Office, the Department of Justice concluded there’s no legal authority to disqualify a candidate because “there is no set of qualifications for who can be considered at a party nominating convention.”
“I understand that people want to skip to the end of this story. But right now, we don’t even know who the nominee will be,” said Secretary Griffin-Valade. “When the general election comes, we’ll follow the law and be completely transparent with our reasoning.”
Efforts to bar Trump from the ballot have seen legal challenges in Colorado, Michigan and Minnesota, but no state has yet removed the former president from its ballot. Oregon’s primary in May is one of the last in the nation
