As former President Donald Trump dominates the Republican presidential primary, some liberal groups and legal experts contend that a rarely used clause of the Constitution prevents him from being president after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The 14th Amendment bars from office anyone who once took an oath to uphold the Constitution but then “engaged” in “insurrection or rebellion” against it. A growing number of legal scholars say the post-Civil War clause applies to Trump after his role in trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election and encouraging his backers to storm the U.S. Capitol.
Two liberal nonprofits pledge court challenges should states’ election officers place Trump on the ballot despite those objections.
The effort is likely to trigger a chain of lawsuits and appeals across several states that ultimately would lead to the U.S. Supreme Court, possibly in the midst of the 2024 primary season. The matter adds even more potential legal chaos to a nomination process already roiled by the front-runner facing four criminal trials.
Don’t make this into a liberal BS. The GOP scholars were the first one to bring this up. This title is BS.
Huh? Based on this article, two conservative professors gave the issue a boost because of their recently released law review article, but the liberal non-profit (Free Speech For People) has been urging states to do this since 2021:
Though most litigation is unlikely to begin until October, when states begin to set their ballots for the upcoming primary, the issue has gotten a boost from a recently released law review article written by two prominent conservative law professors, William Baude and Michael Paulsen. They concluded that Trump must be barred from the ballot due to the clause in the third section of the 14th Amendment.
…
In 2021, the nonprofit Free Speech For People sent letters to the top election official in all 50 states requesting Trump’s removal if he were to run again for the presidency. The group’s legal director, Ron Fein, noted that after years of silence, officials are beginning to discuss the matter.
Letters aren’t lawsuits.
And neither are law review articles. I think we’re talking about who pushed the idea of using the 14th Amendment first. Of course, the article also acknowledges that the first lawsuit on this issue was filed by a Republican presidential candidate:
On Wednesday, a long-shot Republican presidential candidate, John Anthony Castro, of Texas, filed a complaint in a New Hampshire court contending the 14th Amendment barred Trump from that state’s ballot.
No what I’m saying is it’s not just a liberal thing that this title is trying to stroke flames here. It is the unilateral parties that believes he is a threat to democracy.
What I’m saying is the title is trying to do them vs us again when it’s not. Both parties scholars have been arguing this case for Trump not to be allowed again and they are right.
deleted by creator
Exactly. It would be beyond stupid for “Liberal groups” to try to disqualify him now. He’s on track to sail through the primaries and lock up the Republican nomination. Never interrupt your opponent when they are making a mistake.
I keep thinking this, though it makes me nervous at the same time. Trump has way more support among Republicans than any of the others, but I think and hope he’d have real problems in the general election. The reason that thought makes me nervous is because I didn’t think he had a real shot in 2016, and that turned out to be disastrously wrong. I would so hate to end up with another Trump term.
If he’s excluded, then one of the other candidates will win the Republican primary. That person isn’t going to have as much support in the primary - that’s likely to be a closer race - but night not have as much problem in the general. Ultimately, by and large, Republicans are going to vote for the Republican candidate.
I’m going to be anxious until next November.
I’m more worried about what happens if he loses and his supporters decide not to take no for an answer.
It’s not good, but him winning has to be worse in the long run.
We saw what happens. I don’t think it’ll go worse this time than it did in 2020
Tagging so I can come back and say I told you so in two years.
if that’s what’s important to you no one can stop you
You should still be nervous because he only won due to Electoral College numbers, not votes. He just needs to win in the right places and it’s a done deal. And if anything, quite a few of those “right places” are firmly on his side already. He only lost last time because a few of the “right places” didn’t go his way, which they still probably can.
This is what scares me… we are powerless in a sense to the electoral votes… and the packed supreme court is equally as scary should these lawsuits fall on their feet… we already know the outcome of that…
We aren’t ‘powerless,’ but we really don’t want to do the solution. Just 300,000 blue-voting california residents in the right states would ensure Democrat control of the executive for at least the next 10 election cycles; around 2 million moving to the right states and districts would ensure at least a blue majority in congress as well. But I ain’t signing up to move. And the DNC isn’t offering relocation vouchers. And it’s probably not legal for them to offer to pay for relocation for political purposes.
I plan on being anxious until I’m dead.
Hey, good plan. Saves having to know if it’s an anxiety day when you get up in the morning.
What (slightly?) soothes me a tiny bit is knowing that a DeSantis presidency would almost certainly be significantly worse. Trump, for all his flaws, can be relied on for exactly one thing: he cares only about himself. He doesn’t really have any significant policy objectives beyond inflating his own ego. That would still be disastrous in a lot of ways, but there’s a raw vindictiveness to DeSantis that Trump doesn’t really have.
We also have the benefit of knowing that Biden can and has beaten Trump before, and he hasn’t really gained any new fans. A Trump nomination is probably the clearest shot we have to a good 2024 (yes, I know we’ve heard this one before).
Trump doesn’t need his own policy objectives. He has republican think tanks to do that work for him. He just signs his name. It’s not like it was his idea to pack the supreme court. That came from Heritage Foundation or some such place.
I think this is ultimately worse than DeSantis because Trump will allow ALL THE CRAZIES to get around him (Sydney Powell anyone?) and that is what he’ll do. DeSantis will bring your average GOP talking points with extra racism on top, but he’s probably not going to bring insurrectionists into the conversation.
That’s what people said when he was nominated the first time. When are we going to learn our lesson? In a two party system, we need both candidates to be minimally acceptable. Trump can, sadly, win.
None of the republican candidates are minimally acceptable. All of them are authoritarian and wish to end democracy. I think it’s more dangerous if one of the less crazy-sounding ones gets the nomination. Biden is unpopular and there’s a very real chance anybody who’s not Trump will win simply by virtue of being somebody “new.”
The ideal scenario is that Trump gets the nomination but can barely campaign in the general because of all of his court obligations. It gets even better if he’s knocked off a few state ballots and/or the republican party tries to take the nomination away from him after the fact and they tear each other apart with infighting.
No candidate is minimally acceptable, but there is a huge difference between Trump and the others. The others are normal bad, and most of the horrible things they do can be reversed democratically in 4 years. I genuinely don’t know if American democracy can survive another 4 years of Trump.
Also, your assumption that Trump is less electable than other Republicans is not obvious to me. We don’t like him, we think he’s obviously bad, but I think, just like in 2016, this is clouding people’s judgment. He has high unfavorables, but so does Biden, and Trump also has cult-like popularity.
Don’t let’s get arrogant now. He can win the presidency, but only through the complacency of decent people. Remember that his campaign spent money convincing Democrat voters to stay home in 2016 for various reasons from “she’s got this locked up, your vote won’t make a difference” to “they’re all the same anyway”. He paid Cambridge Analytica to research the best ways to make you not care.
deleted by creator
Same thing happened in PA. This is the GOP eating itself, and to cast is as the doing of some nebulously-defined “liberals” is irresponsible journalism.
it was ANTIFA! I knew it was those rascals
The same antifa that did the Jan 6 riots, yeah
Christi? Seems like his whole shtick is bringing Trump down and nevermind getting the nomination.
Scandalous!
Traitors who don’t believe in our democracy and try to stop the will of the people who voted, should not be allowed in our government. They can’t be trusted to keep their oath to the constitution if they broke that oath before.
Text of the relevant section of the 14th Amendment:
Section 3.
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.Edit:
Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxivThe “aid or comfort” clause seems like a decent bet. I’m sure he’s publicly stated how much he loves the rioters at least a dozen times.
The article should say Americans not a liberals want to stop that treasonous bastard.
You’re saying you think conservative Americans want to stop him?
If they’re supporting a traitor, are they Americans?
They unequivocally are, yes.
Conservatives aren’t Americans.
I’m two weeks late but It needs to be said: fuck right off with that kind of talk. I don’t know anything about you, but I know you probably won’t agree when I say that that is a profoundly wrong, almost evil way of thinking.
My parents are American. My sister is an American. Japanese citizens during WW2 were American. Muslim citizens are American.
Jewish citizens of Germany were German.
If any of them are CONSERVATIVES- in my opinion, they’re not American. Sorry if this upset you, but it’s my opinion.
I understand what you’re saying. It’s just my opinion that you’re woefully ignorant. Sorry if this upsets you, cheers.
are republicans libs now?
If you’re a Hexbear member they are.
Many conservatives self-identity as “clasical liberals”
It’s not just a hexbear thing
Def. A minority in terms or population, however gerrymandering and cherry picking boundaries for representatives changes the outcome at the polls.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A growing number of legal scholars say the post-Civil War clause applies to Trump after his role in trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election and encouraging his backers to storm the U.S. Capitol.
“There’s a very real prospect these cases will be active during the primaries,” said Gerard Magliocca, a law professor at Indiana University, warning that there could be different outcomes in different states before the Supreme Court makes a final decision.
That section bars anyone from Congress, the military, and federal and state offices if they previously took an oath to support the Constitution and “have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”
Trump argues that any effort to prevent him from appearing on a state’s ballot amounts to “election interference” — the same way he is characterizing the criminal charges filed against him in New York and Atlanta and by federal prosecutors in Washington, D.C., and Florida.
On Wednesday, a long-shot Republican presidential candidate, John Anthony Castro, of Texas, filed a complaint in a New Hampshire court contending the 14th Amendment barred Trump from that state’s ballot.
Ratified in 1868, the 14th Amendment helped ensure civil rights for freed slaves — and eventually for all people in the U.S. — but also was used to prevent former Confederate officials from becoming members of Congress and taking over the government they had just rebelled against.
The original article contains 1,376 words, the summary contains 238 words. Saved 83%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
It’ll be interesting to see how the courts play this out. Usually the determination of whether someone did or did not engage in an illegal activity is upon conviction by a jury - innocent until proven guilty. Consequences cannot be rendered until that point.
Trump hasn’t (yet) been charged with insurrection specifically, so a conviction on the existing charges likely wouldn’t trigger the 14th Amendments restriction.
“Giving aid or support” could be an interesting argument though, because a few of the J6 participants have been convicted of “seditious conspiracy”, which could maybe fall under the definition of rebellion, and Trump has certainly spoken spoken in support of the participants in general.
I look forward to reading some riveting decisions over the next year.
You’re forgetting about civil law. You can face legal consequences without ever being charged with a crime. And nothing in the amendment says a criminal conviction is required to be someone from office.
Criminal cases are ones in which the dispute exists between a private citizen and the government, which is to say that the government has accused the citizen of breaking the governments laws. The government must prove its case beyond a shadow of a doubt, but once it has done so penalties can include the loss of freedom, as the law defines.
Civil cases are disputes between private citizens, one accusing the other of some wrong. Private citizens do not have to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt, just present a preponderance of evidence. Because civil cases don’t judge the breaking of law, penalties are much less harsh, and revolve around compensating the wounded party for the wrong indicates by the evidence.
Insurrection and rebellion are crimes that, by definition, could only ever be commit against a government. As such they would necessarily have to be tried as criminal cases, and a conviction secured before invoking any loss of freedom as punishment (and on such a conviction, loss of a political campaign would be the least of these).
It is theoretically possible that the federal government could sue Trump for damages from J6, but for that case to be relevant to the 14th amendment it would have to provide evidence that the event that day was indeed an insurrection or rebellion directed by him. That moots the point of a civil suit, however, because if the government had that sort of evidence, it could charge him criminally instead.
Block that whiny bitch out!
Ban the lame bastard from earth.
This is a ridiculous premise. Liberals want Trump on the ticket. It’s a guaranteed win for Biden. Republicans want him off the ticket because they can’t control him. Of course, Republicans can’t be seeing doing this. So they’ll make it look like liberals taking out Trump, and they will float desantis as a way to own the libs.
I don’t want him on the ticket regardless of what the election situation holds. The rules mean nothing if we don’t follow them when it suits us.
Liberals want Trump in prison, not on the ticket. I would happily have virtually any other Republican become president if it meant Trump was never a threat to America again.
What are these morons thinking? The best thing that could happen in this race is let Trump be the GOP nominee. He lost to Biden 4 years ago. With all the new shit that has been discovered, do we think he would actually gain support?? No. Of course not. We know he won’t lose his core base, but he would lose to Biden with an even bigger margin.
Biden is far more uncertain of victory if he is going up against someone nearly as awful as Trump but younger and a fresh face. Someone who most Americans aren’t as familiar with. DeSatan or Vivek could pose a much bigger threat to Joe.
They are thinking precedent matters, because it absolutely does
You are implying that a different republican nominee could possibly do better than Trump. Do you think DeSantis, Pence, Ramaswamy or whoever could do better than Trump in the general election? Really?
Maybe? Republicans are generally going to vote for whomever gets the Republican nomination, but Trump is so over the top that some moderate Republicans just can’t swallow voting for him. He’s defending himself against multiple felony indictments, and not everyone is able to brush that off. They may not love someone like Pence, but that may not be different from the number of Democrats who think Biden is too old but will vote for him because he’s the Democrat running.
They are all awful pieces of garbage, but from a general population (not just Republicans), all of them would do better than Trump. Zero doubt about that. The fact that they are “somebody different” or “not as old as Joe” would gain those people votes.
Pence was Trump’s pathetic bootlicker for 99% of his presidency. DeSantis is a whiny quitter, denying his people federal aid when offered. Ramaswamy is just copying Trump’s bs rhetoric (and many republicans are racist).
You are assuming that Trump voters are rational.
Some people will vote for Trump just to see the world burn
Nah, knock him off the ballot in swing states if you can. He will still be the overall nominee but he’ll be dead in the water if he isn’t on the ballot in a just a few key states. His cult will still vote for him as a write in and guarantee the Republicans lose.
So we’re just gonna pick and choose what parts of the Constitution that should be upheld?
ITT a lot of people who think insurrection is basically equivalent to lying… something you deal with by voting.
That’s not what insurrection is.
I’m not seeing that in this thread.
Took 2 seconds to find an example: https://lemmy.world/comment/2996043
That link isn’t working for me. Is the example “a lot of people?”
