He can’t win if he only gets voted in in half the states, or at least it would not be a commanding mandate. That’s kind of the point.
If a person can win 270 electoral votes, he’s president over all the states, even those who didn’t vote for him.
Claim: the 14th amendment does not apply to the presidency.
Wondering why. Because he must be impeached? The other people in the list can also be impeached. I view the impeachment as a quick political solution to a country in crisis. Congress removes the person that is not playing by the rules. The person is also removed from running again. Courts can then deal with him.
If the amendment does not apply to the presidency for some unknown reason, what would be situation where is so important to keep a president in power that such rules do not apply? A nation at war?
I don’t think this is the case, and it’s done this way to diffuse centralized power in our federalist system. (Imagine a government where the president - Trump like - rules his expected upcoming opponent ineligible to run against him, and now that ruling is binding on all ballots in all states. I think the founders were more worried about this than inconsistency amongst the states)
Yeah, I think this is correct, as it’s the nature of the American compact that states forgo some measure of sovereignty to be part of the federal union. One primary example of this is accepting that a person can be elected president who your state rejected, for whatever reason, provided they secured a majority of the electoral votes (this is an important part; somebody who was not deemed legitimate in enough states won’t be able to secure this total).
Now, if you are saying that it would undermine the authority of the constitution if states simply ignored its provisions (such as by letting a 21 year old, or somebody who engaged in insurrection, be on the ballot), well then I’d agree with you.
But that’s an issue of legitimacy- do we all want to live under this system of government or not? The constitution simply doesn’t address what happens if some member states just ignore it. And right now that’s the risk I think we are facing, because trump is offering another option- fascist dictatorship- and it’s scary how many people are supporting the idea.
There’s an enormous and qualitative difference between the fundamental and universally accepted democratic principle that someone who you didn’t vote for might still win, and being forced to accept that someone Constitutionally ineligible has won.
I feel like you’re evading my point here somewhat.
You’re arguing that by design the U.S. political system is such that states should be allowed to independently determine whether someone is disqualified under 14A, and that a federal process should not interfere with that. I’m pointing out that (with respect to the presidency) a federal process does inevitably interfere with that state independence - the election result, which may effectively overrule individual state determinations on disqualification. So the fact is that states do not really have the independence you claim, and perhaps it might be less chaotic to make a binding federal determination on 14A disqualification earlier in the democratic process rather than later.
That “federal process” of reaching an election result is really just a bunch of state processes put together. This is not a top down approach.
Look, if everybody is on the level, then it shouldn’t be controversial for each state to independently verify that a candidate is objectively qualified - if you aren’t 35, for example, no state that respects the constitution will recognize you as a candidate. There’s no harm, and no need for a centralized determination of eligibility.
But what if it was more subjective: not trump and insurrection but whether Obama had birthright citizenship? Sure, it’s nice to think that we’d have a central government ruling that he was in fact born in Hawaii, but do we really want to trust that to the GW Bush administration (or, for the future, somebody even more MAGA)? Or is it safer to allow each state to provide for a legal process to challenge his eligibility? If there are rogue elements, they won’t be able to gain as much traction, or their impact won’t disturb the national result (since they’d be isolated). This abuse of power must be considered.
Now, as I noted, if some states just don’t care anymore about the rules of the constitution, that’s another issue. Same if nobody will agree on the same set of facts. We get secession like in the 1860s, or an outright end to our democracy.
But I’m talking about people who want to maintain a constitutional republic.
Obviously the way the United States fundamentally works is that the states have a certain amount of independence that cannot be overridden at a federal level, but some constraints on that independence that can.
I’m not seeing why any particular thing must fall into the former category and can only depend on voluntary compliance among all states, with the only alternative being the drastic conclusion that the system has failed. It just seems to me common sense that 14A disqualification (at least for the presidency) should be something that falls into the latter category, that states do not have freedom to determine independently. (I acknowledge that the current Constitution does not say this explicitly.)
We accept without question that the system should allow federal authority to override the individual states on some fundamental rights, and that this is a good thing. We don’t take the approach that allowing individual states to go rogue on Consitutional rights is desirable on the basis that we can’t trust federal authority and if there’s no federal intervention at least some states will probably be doing the right thing.
I’m not saying that it’s the only alternative. I’m just saying that it has a logical basis, as it diffuses central power, and that can be a good thing.
How about this example?
Let’s suppose donald wins re-election, and after 4 years he’s tired and decides he wants Ivanka to take over, so he makes her the new Republican nominee. The Democrats nominate Gretchen Whitmer. donald then declares that Whitmer (by virtue of some speech she once made) is an insurrectionist, and is therefore ineligible.
Under our current system, that has no teeth. Much like claims of voter fraud, he’d instead have to successfully litigate the issue in each state, subject to a cross sections of checks on his attempted outcome. No, it’s not the only way to design the system, but in this scenario it proves beneficial.
Colorado’s decision is being appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. It’s not the case that there is no federal intervention. I’m just suggesting that the court’s intervention in one state doesn’t mandate intervention in all the states.
Come on, if some federal authority determines 14A disqualification for the presidency, no sane person would design a Constitutional system where that federal authority is the sitting president.
In any event, proof by example is not a sensible way of choosing between two approaches when clearly neither is perfect. If state power has a greater tendency to corruption or subversion, then a system that empowers federal intervention is desirable. If federal power has a greater tendency to corruption or subversion, then state independence is desirable.
But surely the primary concern with respect to any specific issue is not the general question of whether state or federal power is fundamentally more susceptible to corruption or subversion. That general question doesn’t allow us to decide which subset of issues are sensibly decided at the federal level. The question is whether federation-wide consistency among states is important on a specific issue.
Exactly! I can’t say I don’t care one way or another if trump is disqualified. I fervently hope that he is and believe wholeheartedly that he should be. But the most important thing is that everyone is on the same page, and as soon a possible.
I don’t see this as a battle between state and federal forces. It’s a simple matter of constitutional interpretation, which is what the SCOTUS is supposed to decide as the main function of their job. Is trump in fact disqualified from serving as president due to the 14th Amendment? Yes or no? That’s not telling the states how to run their elections. That’s letting everyone know in advance whether or not they’re putting forth a useless ballot for their citizens to vote on. I imagine some states could or would still include trump even if he has been federally declared disqualified. Doesn’t mean he can hold office, it just means some stubborn states would be throwing away their electoral votes.
It seems like you’d view it as the SC being empowered to make a determination after electoral votes are cast about whether the winner is disqualified by 14A from holding office and therefore cannot be sworn in at inauguration; but just telling the states ahead of time that this would be the outcome, so they do not waste their votes?
I can see the logic in that, but that implies that the SC can only overrule the states on 14A disqualification in the case of false negatives but not false positives. In other words, under your framing SC can tell states: if you don’t disqualify this candidate, we will. But that seems to imply that SC would have no power to intervene if a state wrongly disqualifies someone.
Is that the way you think it should be? If states want to kick someone off the ballot under 14A, that’s entirely in their power with no recourse to federal appeal; and a candidate can be disqualified under 14A either by the state or later after electoral college votes are cast by the SC?
Has anyone in this thread said that? I certainly didn’t. In my earliest comments I’ve said that if a state official makes that decision, that would be subject to judicial review.
That is exactly what is happening here - the state courts made a determination, and now it will go to the Supreme Court for a review on whether the Colorado supreme court properly interpreted s. 3 of the 14th Amendment, and properly applied it to the facts of the case as found by the trial judge.
In a setting where the state courts have the constitutional responsibility for running federal elections, it strikes me as appropriate for them to have the power to make the initial determination of eligibility, subject always to subsequent judicial review by the federal courts.
See post 262:
Post 414:
Post 471:
Then we don’t disagree.
Yes, clearly.
So you’d agree with me that whatever the initial process, the ultimate outcome should be a consistent finding across all states.
Who? Is someone saying that the Supreme Court lacks jurisdiction to review the state rulings? I don’t recall seeing it.
Saying that the 14th Amendment doesn’t require congressional legislation is not the same as saying the states are immune from federal review. That federal review can be in the federal courts, just like any other action that states take under the federal constitution.
Some people are clearly arguing that inconsistent findings among states on 14A disqualification are acceptable and should not be overruled.
But that’s the point of federal judicial review, again, just like other constitutional issues where states and state courts may reach different results on the constitutional interpretation.
Well clearly some people in this thread don’t agree that the SC is empowered to overrule state determinations to achieve a consistent application of 14A disqualification across all states. Isn’t most of the discussion here about exactly what the SC can and cannot do given the lack of clarity in the Constitution on the matter?
I could be seeing it wrong, but it seems like most people are saying the SCOTUS can’t tell states that they have applied their own state election laws wrongly. But they can clarify the Constitutional basis for or against the law itself if there is a dispute. That’s actually pretty common. Someone sues against gerrymandering, or drop boxes, or mail in ballots that the state finds to be lawful under their own particular election laws, and sometimes it reaches the Supreme Court. They look at the law, look at the Constitution, and make a ruling; or they say that such a matter isn’t something the federal judiciary is in charge of.
I’m not sure how that differs from what I said. There is no clarity on what the SC can/should do with this appeal, and surely that’s what this whole discussion is about.
The right wing SC’s espoused originalist principles imply that they should come to the latter conclusion - that this isn’t something the federal judiciary is in charge of. And some people think that’s fine, that the upshot of different states coming to contradictory determinations on the application of 14A disqualification is not a problem.
The right wing’s espoused principles are subject to a lot of domestic violence.