Speaking strictly for myself, it is refreshing to see a poster accept moderator action in the spirit in which it was intended and not come at me like a banshee on meth in PMs. Thank you for remedying your mistake and being gracious about it. Nicely done.
…which would tend to suggest that Representatives and Senators get a pass, wouldn’t it?
At one time they were appointed and not elected.
What I’d like to know is: If SCOTUS overrules Colorado on the basis that that states can’t declare a candidate ineligible under 14A, who would be allowed to make that call? AFAIK, there’s no national, non-partisan agency that rules on POTUS candidates’ eligibility. The same question could be asked about a candidate who was 33, or was born in China. Who exactly says, nope, you’re out?
(Same question applies in the unlikely hypothetical in which we actually elect someone who isn’t eligible under 14A.)
Like the arguments that a sinful Pope’s elevation of a certain cleric to Cardinal would remain valid, right?
The answer is, of course, depends who you ask. The right wing judges may conclude no one can enforce it against the President because he’s not an “officer of the United States” as Section 3 requires. The less Trumpy/politically motivated justices may conclude that it is up to Congress to create legislation to enforce Section 3 and, since they haven’t (and likely won’t be able to in time to stop Trump), Section 3 is therefore unenforceable against the President until they do. They’d allow for Congress to refuse to seat insurrectionists as they have in the past, but for the President, it’s different. Because… reasons.
It does sound like even the less politically motivated judges are leery of the answer being " SCOTUS does." I just don’t think the political willpower is there for SCOTUS to take on the responsibility of disqualifing Trump. They are desperately hoping it doesn’t come to that.
Let me predict, right now, that when USSC rules against Colorado, Trump declares that they said January 6 was not an insurrection and that he wasn’t guilty of anything. “The very brilliant members of the Supreme Court have found me to be innocent of any crimes that I didn’t commit and if I did, I’m immune from anyway.”
I listened to a very brief portion and was surprised to hear one of the liberal judges Implying, if not outright saying, that the President may not be an “officer” where the 14th is concerned, that the writers of the amendment may have excluded the President intentionally. What? Could it be that they couldn’t fathom the idea of the President committing insurrection?
Anyway, Trump gets the win. One can only hope that USSC declines to entertain the immunity appeal and that case begins to move. More likely, they will agree to hear the case and drag it out until after the election. If Biden wins, they rule against Trump. If Trump wins, he orders the case dropped by DOJ and its a moot point. Delaying the case is a win-win for the gutless members of the USSC.
My guess is that they will set a high bar on meeting the insurrection standard. They’ll argue that Trump has never been officially convicted of insurrection so the 14th Amendment doesn’t apply to him.
I won’t argue against that. From my link above:
The former president shouldn’t be too worried, however, as the conservative-controlled court seems unlikely to permit what Chief Justice John Roberts described as a “pretty daunting consequence.”
The justices did not seem very concerned with the question of whether Trump is actually an insurrectionist, only addressing it briefly during the proceedings. Trump lawyer Jonathan Mitchell rejected the notion that the violent assault on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, qualified as an insurrection. - SOURCE
It seems the SCOTUS will not really be trying to answer a question of insurrection. Which is weird since it would seem central to the case.
Daunting consequence indeed. It says the consequence right in the constitution.
I was just reducing the Trump camp’s response. I just made it cheer leader to make it simpler.
The 14th Amendment specifies Representatives, Senators, and presidential/vice presidential Electors explicitly.
The ambiguity of what constitutes an “officer” applies to the executive and judicial branches, as the offices are not specified in the text of the amendment.
From the link.
[quote]Aside from a single question from Jackson, there was no discussion of Trump’s conduct on 6 January 2021 and whether it constituted an insurrection. Instead, nearly all of the justices suggested that a state could not disqualify Trump from the ballot absent some action from Congress.
A decision upholding the Colorado supreme court’s ruling would not automatically remove Trump from the ballot across the country. [/quote]
I think Guardian is wrong. The Supreme Court are deciding if Trump is on the ballot or not. If they side with Colorado, at least a dozen states will remove him. The court also cannot decide for each of those states, once they have decided for Colorado (instead of Colorado’s court decideing). If the court does not decide this, they are not doing their job. They can’t just refuse to decide. They are expected to do some work.
On the plus side, the longer that a conspiracy brews, and the more participants there are in it, the harder it will be to keep it a secret, particularly since the participants aren’t exactly under military discipline or any kind of legal or contractual force to stick with it.
It’s a multi-part case, and determining that the insurrection was, legally, an insurrection is unnecessary if some of the other technical elements are not met.
Which suggests to me that any justice who thinks there may be a question about “was it an insurrection or not?” has made up their mind that one of the prior elements has not been met.
Which bodes ill for keeping Trump off the ballot.
During the crafting of the amendment this point was brought up by a Senator.
It’s also worth noting that there was just a single reference in the Senate debate to the fact that the president and vice president were not explicitly mentioned in Howard’s draft as “officer(s) of the United States,” the way members of Congress and state officials had been itemized in the text. Would the disqualification clause of the amendment not cover the top posts in the executive branch?
“Why did you omit to exclude them?” asked Maryland Democratic Sen. Reverdy Johnson.
Maine’s Lot Morrill jumped in to clarify.
“Let me call the Senator’s attention to the words 'or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States,” Morrill said, ending the discussion on that point.
The president’s oath of office (do oaths carry legal weight?):
(Bolding mine)
Around noon, the president-elect recites the following oath, in accordance with Article II, Section I of the U.S. Constitution:
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” - SOURCE
What’s comical in this show is that the Supreme Court is now refusing to use the text of the amendment as anything of value. Leave it to the states. And they will side with Trump.
The funny part of this is that the court will make a decision. They then leave the enforcement of their decision…they have no powers to do that…to the executive branch. Which is Trump, maybe. He could well manipulate the 2028 election as well.
Hey, no arguments from me. The argument that Mitchell advanced is pretty lame on the face of it; but it will give the motivated members of the Supreme Court enough of a fig leaf to vote the way they want to on the issue. I was simply pointing out that kaylasdad99’s argument about it not applying to Congresscritters wouldn’t work because said critters were specified explicitly rather than implicitly, as was the case of other officeholders.
I agree with the way the amendment was drafted - it clearly is meant to apply to any position in the federal government, and they couldn’t enumerate every position in the government, including those that hadn’t yet been created - but motivated reasoning covers any number of logical gaps.
Those people do not hold office. If they weren’t explicitly called out, a reasonable inference would be that “officer” doesn’t include them. No such need for the president.
Would that mean a new law to cover all future cases, or fresh legislation each time a presidential candidate commits insurrection?
I can imagine some future Congress (not this one, of course) hammering out a law that defines insurrection along with procedures for declaring a person ineligible, as long as it was in the abstract and not immediately applicable to a specific person. But if Congress has to pass a new law (or resolution, or whatever) in regard to specific people who happen to be running in any given election cycle, it’ll never happen.
(Or, I suppose, some future GOP-majority Congress that’s abolished the filibuster might declare the Dem front-runner ineligible, for whatever bullshit reasons they come up with.)
(Then again, if the first scenario I describe above actually happened, it would still be up to each future Congress to apply the new law’s guidelines to specific future individuals, so the process could be just as partisan and fractious as what we see today. IOW, we’re screwed either way.)
Ya know, 20 years ago I would have said “This would never happen - there’s a lot of congressional members who actually have a conscious, and would vote for what’s right not for what’s politically expedient.” In today’s atmosphere, I’m not sure about that.