Obama
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I doubt it, since that’s explicitly restricted and one of the few things in the constitution not open to interpretation.
My own personal, non-legal feeling is that the president is not the single officeholder who should be able to insurrect at will and still hold the office, but also that it should not be up to individual states because that’s the one elected office that does not represent any individual state. Then again, that’s one more reason the president should be elected by national vote instead of state electors.
And while I’m on my soapbox, as long as we do have the current odious system, I don’t think a presidential candidate should be allowed on any state ballot for the general election unless they’re on enough ballots to win 270 electoral votes.
Obviously, none of that will change as long as they tend to benefit republicans.
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Yeah, well, I’d think that about the ‘cannot have participated in an insurrection against the United States after having taken an oath as an officer of the United States to support the Constitution’ eligibility requirement, too.
Why? It’s not like the Constitution binds Electors to vote for one candidate or another. If we’re gonna keep the current EC, we should actually have states voting for electors, and make the Electors run, prohibit campaigning by candidates for POTUS in any state completely. They can do rallies and stake out their policy positions in DC.
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Just like we did in 2020 or did we? I guess it depends on who you ask.
I agree. I just think it needs to be done at the federal level and that the states should only have that much influence over offices that represent that state.
Of course, I hold no hope whatsoever that congress would take up this responsibility and actually come up with something coherent, but that doesn’t mean the states couldn’t fuck it up if given the opportunity.
ETA: Having said that:
At the end, the majority adopted a concern which Trump’s attorneys raised across the disqualification cases: the chaos that would supposedly ensue if different states were to be permitted to decide who might appear on their ballot.
This is a really screwy argument. Apart from the explicit restrictions in the constitution, states can already decide how candidates qualify for the ballot - major party nomination, number of signatures required, etc.
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I don’t think it’s subject to Presidential pardon either, again, only a vote in Congress.
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Probably the one who was on the Whig ticket in 1844. Impressive they were able to come up with a rhyme for the campaign song.
https://youtu.be/ob_zJpelHIk?si=uOupLUD_7xz0Hquw
How would the crowd he exhorted to “fight like hell” have stopped the electoral vote count taking place in the locked, barricaded and guarded Capitol building without resorting to violence? While “fight like hell” is often used as slang in all sorts of non-violent contexts and could have been used rhetorically by Trump and his crew when, for instance, they took cases to court after the election, I can’t think of a single non-violent way that phrase could have been intended on the day of the electoral ballot count.
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Neither cowards nor bought, but mostly long-time true believers in a right wing government, if not some form of coup (remember, these are Federalist Society members). Even Barrett apparently saw the implications, but of course couldn’t bring herself to betray Trump’s favor. Such is capitalist democracy in crisis.
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Yup. Which is why this is a bullshit opinion, and strongly suggests the Justices generally don’t really know how the Presidential elections work.
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btw, just checked in with the GoFundMe:
$1.328M
At this point, not only are they not keeping up with daily interest each new day, their overall fundraising doesn’t cover the interest from the beginning (which they were barely ahead of, before the weekend).
Stick a fork in it.
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That “one weird trick” is called the Constitution, my friend. I’d suggest reading it. We did defeat it at the ballot box. And then it tried to overthrow the government anyway. If the supreme court, as expected, refuses to apply the law as written for the case it was designed for, it is another indictment of our government, not those attempting to hold it accountable.
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If the SCOTUS is so concerned about “uniformity” in Federal Elections and the demonstrated malfeasance of the parties in manipulating the outcome of the EC, there is a simple ruling that could fix everything. Have the POTUS / VPOTUS candidates that win the National Popular Vote take office. That would eliminate a lot of mischief.
But of course they didn’t do that. It would not have been any more radical than having the states run their own federal elections, but they are all pretty much morons, and the “law” even in the good ole’ USA is an ass. The SCOTUS is the most fascistic branch of government - at least until Trump’s second term.
Yesterday’s ruling effectively means that all sections of the 14th Amendment are self executing save one: Article 3 on disqualification of insurrectionists. This is, of course, a departure from the actual words of the Constitution. In short, the Court wanted Trump to stay on the ballot, so this is the way they did it.
I would add the decision could also apply to other federal officeholders who engage in insurrection. Congress would need to pass legislation also implementing Article 3.
Don’t read more into it than this. Trump remains on the ballot. If he had, for example, personally led the attack on the Capitol and refused to step down on January 20, 2021, he’d still not be subject to disqualification as an insurrectionist absent congressional legislation.
Yesterday’s ruling rewrote the 14th Amendment to nullify Article 3 ‘cause they want to protect Trump.
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Wait a minute - are you telling me Keith and Paula’s $10 donations from their coffee cans are not going to put him over the top? I guess they’re just going to have to dig deeper into that minimum wage that DT would keep at the current amount forever. Well, maybe the Truth Social deal will save him.
(Sadly, I assume this will get worked out).
You lack both an understanding of the available evidence and imagination of how it might be presented. Also, the burden of proof in a criminal trial.
Losing is not an option.
Is there any legislation that has ever been passed by Congress that could be construed to be the
means to disqualify under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment? If not then currently there is no mechanism to disqualify under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment? You literally could be convicted of ‘insurrection’ in a Federal court and that could not used to disqualify?
Well, yeah. “I can’t think of” translates pretty cleanly to “lack of imagination.”
Also, I get that we have to prove intent and he doesn’t have to prove a negative, so I’m not suggesting going into a courtroom with my question and call it a day. Regardless, my question remains - what could “fight like hell” mean on that particular day other than “Storm the Capitol and physically disrupt the count?”
Gee, possibly the same thing every other politician on the planet means when they say it?
It’s a common phrase that rarely invokes actual violence. And there is little documentary evidence that trump intended for the mob to do violence against Congress. He would have a solid defense argument that he was merely unleashing protestors against the vote certification.
Don’t get me wrong, trump certainly enjoyed the violence when it initially broke out. But I don’t think there is sufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that it was his plan in advance. So if Jack Smith charges him with inciting an insurrection, trump probably walks free – and certainly walks free on appeal to SCOTUS.
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Consider my question academic. I know you’re a lawyer, but feel free to take off the lawyer hat for a minute. We’re on a discussion blog, not in a courtroom, so anyone can answer if they care to.
I clearly addressed the non-violent rhetorical use of “fight like hell” in my initial post, and I clearly stated in my followup that I get it’s not evidence. In fact, I assume Jack Smith has no interest in pursuing this line of questioning because he already declared DT’s speech to be covered by the 1st amendment.
That’s because the context of most people saying it is directing others to take concrete actions that can make an impact without violence. Everyone in a campaign knows that it means to hit the streets, knock on doors, register people to vote when it’s said BEFORE the election. What are the concrete actions citizens could take on certification day to get DT back into office after 2 months of losing dozens of court cases and having no evidence whatsoever that he was the rightful winner?
And there is little documentary evidence that trump intended for the mob to do violence against Congress.
Maybe, but there’s also no indication that he tried to stop it when he started getting reports of the violence. IIRC, Ivanka, Meadows and some Fox News anchors were trying to get him to tell the rioters to stop, but he didn’t do that for about 2 hours.
What does “unleashing protestors against the vote certification” mean while the building was locked down? Were they going to block traffic so no MOCs could get in? Were they going to yell loudly until Pence stopped counting?