Wondering if any progress can be made by a member of congress bringing up the 2/3rds vote required to re-enable Trump to hold office such as president and calling for such a vote. Which I assume would be defeated and may collapse Trump’s defense that he is allowed to do whatever because he is running for president.
Congress voting 2/3rd in favor of such a measure would “remove the disability” and trump would unequivocally be enabled to be president.
Congress failing to vote such a measure up by 2/3rd would not prevent trump from being president. It would simply leave the current status quo unchanged. Which is to say that it’s legally indeterminate whether what trump did is insurrection, whether the f***-ed wording about “officers” applies to the president, whether the intent was that the whole thing only applied to the Civil war of 1860-1864, etc.
IOW, Congress taking up the question then deciding not to pass the measure is no different legally from Congress never taking up the issue at all. Just like now. Every bill they’ve never passed is non-binding on all of us.
To be sure, an actual well-thought out process to bring such a measure forward would cause all the legal analysis to be done. But at the same time, ultimately the courts are going to have to decide this one. Or they’ll punt and it’ll be up to the political process, or the Army (!!!) to decide the issue.
The odds on a well-thought out process in today’s world is nil.
Bottom line, IMO this is heads trump wins outright, tails trump gets favorable press and nothing more.
If the goal is for Congress to declare that Trump is ineligible for the Presidency due to the 14th Amendment, the cleanest and most non-judicial-reviewable way would be on January 6, 2025 declare any EV for him as not regularly cast. And can we enjoy the poetic justice that if they did declare him ineligible this way it would be on January 6th.
Glenn Kirschner on this subject. Linking at the end, straight to the bad news.