The argument to bar Donald Trump from the 2024 election based on a section of the 14th Amendment has officially entered the bloodstream of the Republican primary.
I’m pretty sure that when they say the clause is “self-executing”, it does not refer to any sort of court case. It means that it does not need any additional companion legislative action (like a law or regulation) to actually put it into effect.
Oh, if the GOP has anything to say, there will be a suit filed in a Court that has nothing but Trumpers on the bench… As written, there may be enough members of Congress gone, and that might mean McCarthy becomes the ex-Speaker of the House. One can dream…
Cross-posting from another thread:
Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 217 (1962):
The 14th doesn’t give Insurrection Clause enforcement authority to the courts; to the contrary, it seemingly reserves that enforcement authority to Congress via section 5 of the 14th. Asking the courts to determine a candidate’s eligibility under the 14th would step on Congress’s own authority to make those determinations, flying in the face of Congress having done exactly that when the re-admitted states tried to send insurrectionists to Congress in the early Reconstruction era. And it would be embarrassing as all get-out for the courts and Congress to disagree on Fat Boy’s eligibility to the office.
Classic political question. He’s not getting DQ’d in the courts.
And I’ll add this: In the unlikely event that some state SOS or whoever decides on their own to boot Trump off their local ballot on insurrection grounds without court approval, it’s either not going to matter because it’s a blue state that Trump isn’t going to win anyway, or the courts will back up Trump for some reason or another to keep him on the ballot.
The courts are not going to save us from democracy.
and former Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) from office. Those attempts were unsuccessful
Depends upon what you mean by unsuccessful. In the Cawthorn case, the courts said he was subject to the 14th, but subsequent events (i.e. that he lost the primary) mooted the issue. The court never ruled on whether he was not eligible because of his involvement in insurrection or not.
Nor is Congress. It’s up to We the People to drive the stake in Trump’s political heart, and this will happen in the general election.
Perhaps. But it could happen in a purple state like PA, MI, etc. I don’t think it likely, but it need not be a cobalt blue state that might try it.
Yeah, and I woke up with Margot Robbie this morning.
I’d say that my bed companion is more realistic than this legal masturbatory wishcasting fantasy.
Stop it Kate/TPM, you’re better than this. The GQP couldn’t even vote to impeach the MF, they are trying desperately to get someone, anyone, anything else to Julius Caesar him and it will go nowhere.
Bring it on. The more Republican voices the better. Hutchison broached the subject and we know everyone of the republicans running for president has a vested interest in getting TFG(aka traitor) out of the primary.
Problem is- any verbal stab at TFG disqualifies then from votes from MAGATS.
Let’s have the media engage in the chaos In Republican Party.
If the Republicans in Congress had voted him guilty for the high crimes and misdemeanors they knew he committed, they wouldn’t be in this mess now.
I would like to see Sen. Schumer bring a resolution to the floor stating that a majority of both Houses of Congress has already impeached and voted to convict Trump for inciting an insurrection, including 57 votes in the Senate. The resolution would, therefore, be to restore Trump’s eligibility to appear on the ballot, as required by the 14th Amendment. When Trump, inevitably, fails to receive the 2/3 support required, that would serve as a powerful tool for those looking to have him disqualified at the state level.
Not going to happen without cover of a court order that itself isn’t going to happen. Attempting to single-handedly remove a major party’s nominee from a state’s ballot would amount to an anti-democratic electoral coup.
It might be fun to try it for a primary, however. It wouldn’t work, but it might be fun.
Congress would have every right to reject any electoral votes cast for a person ineligible to assume the office, but I can only ever imagine them doing so in the most blatant or direst circumstances. Congress is not going to save us from democracy, even though it has authority to do so.
Which state’s Republican Party would back that move? Trump maneuvered to change several GOP primaries to winner-take-all.
I think the recent Supreme Court ruling on the Independent State Legislature Theory is one indication the court is ready to jump off the train before the wreck. Many right-wing members of the court had expressed an interest in the oddball theory. But when they looked down the tracks and saw Eastman would be crucified for his support of the theory, the majority on the Supreme Court found a case to vote down the ISLT.
Our they grateful to Trump, well kinda. But they see themselves as legal geniuses in their own right who have earned their positions on the High Court. They wouldn’t risk anything to save Trump.
Don’t be part of the stew. Be a SPOON! Good on you, Asa, for putting it out there.
None of them. The premise only works if a blue state SOS wanted to try to kick Trump off the primary ballot somewhere that the state administers the primary. State parties run caucuses, but primaries are generally (maybe wholly, IDK) administered by state and local elections officials.
Wouldn’t that be a hoot. If in 2024 Trump were to win the EC but a House and Senate, both with Democratic majorities, voted to deny him certification based on violation of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. Talk about divine irony.
The ultimate case of being hoisted by Trump’s own petard. The popcorn sellers would love it.
Its not happening in MI. I can’t see Joselyn Benson making the decision to not put him on the ballot. Just not gonna happen here.
I don’t always agree with our very knowledgeable resident Texas lawyer here, but I agree on this one. Ain’t gonna happen. The courts would intervene and make a mess of it somehow, or find a way to make sure that orange menace was back on the ballot able to run for office. The enforcement mechanism for this notion just isn’t there like we’d like it to be. Its an attempt to find a way out of the mess we’re in but it sorta wreaks of desperation that we don’t already have a better alternative. And the Supremes aren’t gonna save the country from another tRump pResidency either.
We need to codify this mess into actual law by a majority held Democratic Congress. That’s the only way I can see preventing this criminality of being able to run for the Presidency or stay in office, from ever happening again at the highest level. If it means adding another Amendment to the Constitution then we all better get on with ratifying that state by state because this problem isn’t gonna go away on its own. But since the ERA still hasn’t been ratified in all these years, I’m not holding out much hope for this idea of preventing a criminal from being president of the USA by an Amendment to the Constitution.
tRump broke all kinds of rules and norms that were never codified into law when he was in office. He seemed to know exactly which ones he could get away with that weren’t against the law and which ones he could come up right against the line. Yet still today, a lot of those rules and so-called norms haven’t been shored up, fixed or made into legal restrictions by the executive branch authority including a willfully criminally-minded President. Congress has its work cut out for it but this Congress won’t begin to do anything about it until most of the lawbreakers in Congress are voted out of office to begin with. Right now there are so many Rethugs that were pro-insurrection or still in denial that I haven’t a lot of faith that’s gonna happen anytime soon.
