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this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2024
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The 14th amendment requires no criminal conviction. Your whole argument about needing to be convicted of insurrection is just flat out wrong based on the actual text of the amendment. You can argue it's poorly written, and I might agree with you, but it says what it says.
The remedy for being disqualified by the 14th is to petition congress to remove the disqualification. Such remedies were petitioned for and approved in the 1860s and 70s without much fuss.
See, while what you're saying is true, it's not the whole truth.
The remedies in the late 1800's were required because Congress had already taken action to define the events of the Civil War as an insurrection. It was an act of Congress that they were having to appeal. There has been no similar act of Congress that Trump would need to appeal.
The core question, and one that the justices seem to be asking pointedly, is who determines whether someone's actions constitute "insurrection"? In the past, it was Congress. There's certainly an argument to be made that if someone was convicted of criminal insurrection, that would suffice. But absent those two, how do you make that determination, and who makes that determination.
I think the court feels that, while the 14th doesn't explicitly state how to make that determination, absent a criminal conviction or act of Congress, that there is no grounds to disqualify a candidate due to 14th amendment rules.
And I think I kind of agree. Or, at least, I think there should be some sort of objective metric that gets defined before making a determination. Especially since the last major use of the 14th was literally the Civil War, which, as bad as Jan6 was, is a pretty huge amount worse. And if we're plotting them along a continuum, to the left of Jan6 you have things like mass protests that attempt to shut down government functions to push certain agendas, which I think we all agree is well within the bounds of freedom of speech.
I'm not defending Trump, let me be clear. I am simply advocating that we note that there is nuance to this issue. Life is not painted in black and white. Just because something was bad, and even that it should be disqualifying, doesn't mean that it's easy to justify that fact in the current legal framework we exist in.
The state of Colorado has found, as a matter of fact, that Trump engaged in insurrection.
To argue that it takes an act of congress to declare someone an insurrectionist when the remedy for such a declaration is also congress doesn't make any sense. You can't have the same body deciding such things because you'd just have a chicken and egg situation (which is exactly what trump wants).
That's nice, but SCOTUS is going to disagree with your interpretation.
There's no point in arguing with any sense of clarity on any matter of Constitutional interpretation while this Supreme Court is on the bench. They will do whatever they want, and we will suffer the consequences as always
And a large part of the SCOTUS scepticism is why should one state be able to decide that as a matter of fact for the rest of the country. From their point of view this should be a federal decision.
And typically you wouldn't see Congress declare a single person as traitorous. Congress could declare Jan6 an insurrection, and then anyone involved who believes they should get an exception is allowed to seek remediation by Congress. Hardly a chicken and egg problem.
States have always determined candidate eligibility on their own. Congressional special bi partisan committee did declare this an insurrection.
Indeed. As with any controversial topic there are a lot more facts and nuances beyond knee-jerk reactions to headlines.
And so, I applaud you for taking the time to outline the issue with the depth it deserves.
I mean, Trump can go to hell, don't get me wrong.
But I am mildly frustrated that something this important is treated so superficially by so many in this and other threads. What can you do though?