Well, currently we are only specific to Colorado and Maine - until (or if) SCOTUS steps in and makes it ‘across the board’ one way or the other. Or other states accept (or use) Colorado’s finding of facts as the precendent.
I think in the other states, that question is not settled, but rather that the laws there don’t allow him to be removed from the primary.
To be clearer - I meant in other states where there has already been one ruling, that there would be subsequent cases in the same state.
That would make more sense to me. So you mean that there has been no finding of fact about 14A, because as a matter of their state law with respect to the primary it’s not relevant.
Not sure about other states, but that’s definitiely the case in Minnesota (gift link):
I would think that if he couldn’t be on the primary - it follows that he would not be on the general, nor could electors be chosen for him.
I don’t think that follows. For one, the Republican presidential primary in state X does not determine who is qualified for the general election. It only determines the delegates sent to the RNC as per RNC rules. Before Hubert Humphrey (who pissed people off by not participating in the primary at all) the primary elections were ‘beauty contests’ totally independent of the nomination and therefore the general election.
It is also possible for a candidate to have his or her disqualification removed by Congress in the interim between the primary and general, or even between the general election and the electoral college election. The procedure is provided by the Fourteenth Amendment itself.
~Max
And that’s why the title now says “various states”, not “all states”. The title is still accurate. The count of those various states may change over time, and people are discussing that, and that’s a clear and obvious implication of the title.
I would have thought if the question of whether he’s disqualified under 14A is settled, the subsequent application of state law would be pretty clear. Maybe not.
There’s technically a different set of laws involved with the general election, possibly giving rise to new legal arguments that wouldn’t apply in the primary ballot lawsuit. Formality or no, when the circumstances change, I think Trump has a procedural right to make a new argument, if he can find one.
For example consider that Colorado does not allow faithless electors (and will actually override their faithless vote). Florida will count a faithless elector’s vote. Maybe this factors into the state court’s analysis such that 14th amendment individual disqualification leads to ballot disqualification in Colorado, but not Florida.
Or if you are referring to the state court’s determination that Trump is disqualified under the 14th, that answer is simple. Florida is not bound by the decisions of Colorado state courts in any way whatsoever, because Colorado courts are not a mandatory authority on the federal constitution. While Florida’s courts are sworn to uphold the federal constitution, the only court whose decisions are legally binding on the Florida Supreme Court is the United States Supreme Court. (Likewise for all other state courts of last resort.)
~Max
Not that this will sway SCOTUS or most (if any) courts, but still makes me smile:
Well, the 14th Amendment is unclear about who decides officially if a disability to hold power is in effect (hence the muddle about whether or not it is self-executing).
But it does explicitly state who has the power to remove this presumed disability, and how:
I’m almost wondering if someone in Congress–a Democrat even–should just move to invoke this and call for a vote to remove Trump’s alleged disability. This way, the sentiment of “Let Trump be repudiated at the ballot box, not by a legal technicality” is satisfied in accordance with the 14th Amendment.
One might say this would be pointless–given the statistics, there is no way that a two-thirds majority of Congress would vote yea on it. But I wonder if the party-line divide would be as stark as it might seem. I think a handful of Democrats might be on board with the ‘repudiate him at the ballot box’ sentiment, while a handful of Republicans might want to just roll the dice with a different candidate.
But more importantly, I think the Republican caucus would be unwilling to agree to have that vote in the first place, since doing so would be to tacitly acknowledge that the disability exists. And that would be a potent arrow in the quiver of Democrats: “Hey, we moved to vote to allow Mr. Trump to be qualified under the 14th Amendment; you guys were the ones who said no.”
That’s actually a pretty clever strategy.
This is intriguing, and I like the way you game it out.
Unfortunately, it would require Democrats to flirt with the idea of asserting – or actually voting to assert – that Trump did not engage in an insurrection. (Or that he did, but they’re willing to let it slide.) Since it’s beyond obvious to me (and millions of others) that he did so, this assertion would be an appalling betrayal of the values I expect Democrats to uphold. And all for a political ploy. Hard pass.
Very fair. And to be honest, if I were someone with real influence at the party level, instead of a nobody on a message board, I don’t think I would advocate for it; or at least, I would want a crack team of serious political heavyweights to brainstorm it very hard before advocating it!
I just really, really want the 2024 Presidential election to be decisive and not have a giant asterisk hanging off of it.
I don’t see it that way. If he didn’t engage in insurrection then the vote would be redundant. I could see the opposite, where Republicans abstain from voting because they believe (or want to make it look like they believe) that Trump didn’t engage in insurrection and such a vote is unnecessary.
If a Democrat wants to start a vote on this, I don’t see what requires them to vote in favor of it either, so I don’t see that it signals their willingness to let it slide. Not unless they actually do vote that way for some reason.
Trump is ineligible for Nevada’s primary ballot because Trump’s campaign didn’t fill out an application to place him on Nevada’s primary ballot.
Deliberately so. The Nevada GOP appears to be boycotting the primary and choosing delegates by caucus. Here’s a somwehat clearer article, but it’s still pretty confusing - Haley is apparently on the primary ballot.
Just what we need.
The goal is to win at any cost. If confusing the sensible people and stampeding the rubes into the “right” decision works, that’s what they’ll do.
Sounds a bit like the goal is to run a sham R primary election like always and have a binding caucus process alongside either before or after. Which is much easier to ensure only the right people vote the right way in.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/26/politics/illinois-14th-amendment-trump-january-6/index.html
Illinois is also debating ruling trump unfit to be on the ballot due to the 14th Amendment. Currently a retired judge has been appointed to hold hearings and then make a recommendation to the election board, who will make the final* determination. The retired judge is described as a Republican, the election board is evenly split with 4 each Democrats and Republicans.
Retired Illinois judge Clark Erickson presided over the roughly two-hour hearing in Chicago on Friday. His recommendation is expected to be announced on Tuesday when the full election board meets. The panel will then vote on the recommendation.
*subject to appeal to the courts, of course
And they voted unanimously to keep him on the ballot in Illinois.
Yes. Likely to be appealed, though: https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/30/politics/donald-trump-illinois-14th-amendment/index.html