An Alaska judge ruled on Thursday that Alaska state Rep. David Eastman (R) will likely be found ineligible for office in a lawsuit seeking to oust the Republican over his lifetime membership with the Oath Keepers, a far-right militia group.
Insurrection has consequences.
All elected officials that support the big lie should be censured, and if their state constitutions’ allow for this type of action, the Rep should be dealt with in the same manner IMHO.
When will the proudboys be declared a terrorist organization?
Because they are.
And the fate of DJT for the same, but exponentially more egregious disloyalties???
That’s a pretty airtight constitutional clause, that one. And the judge is right to let the process play out in proper legal and democratic fashion. I like the hold he put on certification of the election, pending the legal outcome. It’s fairly safe to say Eastman will eventually be turfed, but only after he has had due process.
That’s what I get from this.
About fucking time.
It’s heartening to see these assholes who want to destroy our government from the inside being called out and challenged. Hopefully voters in district 10 of Alaska will see fit to oust Eastman from their legislature if the courts don’t manage it. I’m not actually counting on his constituents to show him the door, but I know nothing of them other than that repubs are pretty tolerant of insurrection and violence-prone representatives.
Some people are just too stupid to hold elected office. FAFO.
Canada did that last year.
Step up America!
That statute seems rather unconstitutional to me. Did the candidate not remember to raise a First Amendment defense?
Eastman was also in D.C. for the Jan. 6 Trump rally that led to the insurrection, but the GOP lawmaker has said he didn’t participate in the violence that took place that day.
Why does this remind me of, “but I didn’t inhale!”?
I’m not a lawyer, but the clause in question is part of Alaska’s constitution, not a statute (which I take to mean regular law).
Can a part of a constitution be unconstitutional?
Of course. Federal law supplants any state law to the contrary, including state constitutional law. The federal First Amendment protects publication of The Communist Manifesto, so the Alaska constitution can’t ban it.
Test case maybe?
It seems rather cut and dried to me, if you advocate for the overthrow of the government, you lose your right to be a member of that government…
This is wrong?
ETA, OK I just saw your other comment, that makes sense,
I’m guessing this constitutional disqualification was put in place by rightwing McCarthyites when Alaska became a state – at the height of the Cold War – to bar Communists and other “leftist undesirables”.
If so, Karma’s played a rather long-term prank on their Trumpian ideological descendants.
(Irony is so ironic!)
All kinds of people advocate for the overthrow of the government, including people on the left. It’s fine. We all get to have opinions on stuff.
That clause mandates that “No person who advocates, or who aids or belongs to any party or organization or association which advocates, the overthrow by force or violence of the government of the United States or of the State shall be qualified to hold any public office of trust or profit under this constitution.”
So I guess there will be no more Alaska Republicans allowed to hold office.
Won’t SCOTUS eventually overrule this?
Will the deciding judge have his life and that of his family threatened over this ruling, causing him to reverse?
I’d love to see these guys ineligible for elected office, but I’m not entirely sure this will stick, legally.