California Secretary of State Shirley Weber is resisting pressure from within the Democratic party to remove Donald Trump from the March statewide primary over his role in the Jan. 6 election.

2021,

attack on the Capitol on the grounds that, unlike the former Republican president, she feels obliged to follow the law.

Weber she said

personal

finds Trump’s “conduct and actions, not only as a former president, but as a citizen of the United States, abhorrent and disturbing and an attack on democracy.”

“But at the same time, if I believe in the democracy that exists, I have to continue to adhere to the rule of law in principle, and if I don’t, then I’m no better than Trump,” Weber told The Washington Post. Times on Friday. “And I have to be better than Trump.”

Weber said attorneys have worked in her office

narrow

Spent months with the California attorney general’s office and attorneys for local cities and counties to determine if there was any legal basis to remove Trump from the March 5 primary over his role in the Capitol insurrection following his loss in the 2020 presidential election. She said the California Constitution does not give her clear authority to take action and is withholding the decision

upwards

to the courts.

Weber was put on the hot seat after Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis sent her a letter

on

Dec. 20 supplicating,

in its role as a state

elections chief, to “explore every legal option to remove former President Donald Trump from California’s 2024 presidential primary.” The letter drew mixed opinions among Democrats.

about Trump’s inclusion in the list of Republican presidential candidates.

Weber responded a few days later, stating that she was determined to put the sanctity of the electoral process above “party politics.”

“I’m not sure why the lieutenant governor is saying, ‘Use whatever means necessary,’ because we’ve already done that,” Weber said Friday. “I didn’t share that information with her because she didn’t ask me.”

Trump’s critics have taken legal action

in an effort against the California Secretary of State

to force

secretary of

able to remove

himTrump

out of the vote, but no one succeeded

so far

, Weber said. Her office is closely monitoring any action by the U.S. Supreme Court.

This isn’t the first time Democrats have tried to keep Trump off the ballot in California.

Gov. Gavin

Newsom signed a law in 2019 requiring candidates to make their tax returns public

in order

to appear on the presidential primary ballot, a requirement rejected by the California Supreme Court.

Newsom agrees with Weber

In a rare rebuke from the lieutenant governor:

Gov. Gavin

Newsom criticized the claim that Trump should be removed from the ballot.

“There is no doubt that Donald Trump is a threat to our freedoms and even our democracy, but in California we are defeating candidates we don’t like at the ballot box,” Newsom said last week. “Anything else is a political distraction.”

Kounalakis wants to succeed Newsom in the 2026 California gubernatorial election

, and her letter to Weber was in California. Kounalakis’ what

largely seen as

quite an effort

to score political points among Democratic voters.

“In my conversations with a number of political advisers in recent days, I am unanimous that sending the letter was heavy-handed and unlikely to provide her with any significant political benefit,” said Darry Sragow, a veteran Democratic strategist.

Sragow said “long-standing political rules of engagement” suggest this

such types of dissertations

cases must be tried in court, and blatant attempts to intervene can appear tone-deaf.

A bad precedent

Weber emphasized that public confidence in the voting process is more important than ever, and she wants to “set the right precedent for future action.”

“If you do the loose interpretation and implementation, you open us up as a state and a nation, so that we are all vulnerable simply because we have an opinion and a point of view,” Weber said.

Nearly a third of Republicans say they have little or no confidence in voting in the Republican presidential elections

elections

and caucuses will be counted correctly, according to a recent poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. That

follows follows

Years of false claims by Trump that the 2020 presidential election was stolen by President Biden.

Weber said excluding Trump from the California ballot could be seen as purely political and encouraging

are Trumps

basics and nutrition

S

its attempt to undermine democratic institutions.

“I’m very aware that it’s not about me, and I know what I would do, but if I’m gone, what would anyone else do? And what could they do?” Weber said. “I don’t want to open a door that’s too ugly and that puts everyone in danger,” she said.

Complex legal issues

Although Kounalakis said the Constitution is clear on this issue, it is not that simple.

Kounalakis and other state Democrats who support removing Trump from the race point to his role in inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol insurrection and a section of the Constitution that prohibits those involved in an insurrection banned from office.

Some Trump critics found Weber’s approach too passive, while others applauded her for letting the traditional route take its course.

The decision will ultimately rest with the US Supreme Court, which appears destined to review decisions in other states under Trump

legal

suitability

will be included from now on

the 2024 vote, said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law. The high

Est

The court will have to decide whether Trump is eligible

for office

“pursuant to a clause in the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution that prohibits officials from holding office if they have engaged in insurrection or rebellion or provided aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”

It is unclear whether the amendment applies to presidential candidates and whether Trump’s role in the January 6 insurrection meets that constitutional threshold.

It’s not up to the chief election official in Colorado or California to decide. It’s a simple question about the U.S. Constitution, and the Supreme Court will have to decide for the entire country, Chemerinsky said.

It is a decision that the constitutional law expert hopes will be taken soon, with the November elections just around the corner.

“I think the longer it goes on, the worse it is for the country,” he said.

What other states are doing

Lawsuits have been filed in dozens of states to remove Trump from the ballot, with mixed results.

So far,

Maine and Colorado have moved to exclude Trump from their ballots. Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellow, a Democrat, said Trump violated the Constitution’s prohibition on insurrection. The Colorado Supreme Court ruled the same, in a case that

Colorado of the state

The Republican Party has appealed to the US Supreme Court.

However, Supreme Courts in Michigan and Minnesota do allow this

it

Trump will remain on the ballot, at least through the March primaries

election

etc

Are

leaving the door open for challenges in the November general election.

States work with a patchwork of procedural laws to sort out the issue, and not all have equal weight in the case, said Jessica Levinson, a professor of constitutional law at Loyola Law School.

In deep blue California, true

Chairman Joe

Biden won 64% of the vote against Trump in 2020. It may not be worth it for state officials to intervene in the “political thicket,” Levinson said.

What Weber is aware of is the fact that there is a bar [Trump] would be seen as anti-democracy or anti-democratic, she said. Some would argue that the advantage here is very small politically, because we know what the outcome will be in California.

Times Staff Writer Jeong Park contributed to this report.