Is Trump disqualified from the ballot by the 14th Amendmend?

[Brainster]

This strikes me as a Hail-Mary pass; unlikely to succeed, but a complete game changer if it does.

[Hercules56]

Originally Posted by Brainster

This strikes me as a Hail-Mary pass; unlikely to succeed, but a complete game changer if it does.

Its shows extremely low confidence in Biden's ability to defeat Trump.

Sadly I agree with them. Its going to be very tight.

[TurkeysGhost]

Originally Posted by Hercules56

Its shows extremely low confidence in Biden's ability to defeat Trump.

Sadly I agree with them. Its going to be very tight.

These magic bullet solutions are cat-nip for libs who want someone authoritative to tell them everything is going to be ok and set everything right. I'm guessing this is less an expression of low confidence in Biden and more these pundits giving the audience what they want to hear.

[JayUtah]

Originally Posted by Hercules56

Its shows extremely low confidence in Biden's ability to defeat Trump.

One of the law professors who authored the paper laying out this roadmap is a never-Trumper conservative. On that basis you could argue that it shows poor confidence among conservatives in Trump's ability to defeat Biden and therefore the desire to replace him with a less volatile candidate.

[TurkeysGhost]

Originally Posted by JayUtah

One of the law professors who authored the paper laying out this roadmap is a never-Trumper conservative. On that basis you could argue that it shows poor confidence among conservatives in Trump's ability to defeat Biden and therefore the desire to replace him with a less volatile candidate.

Doubly so cat-nip for never Trump conservative weenies who are now totally irrelevant in the conservative movement and are politically homeless.

[Hercules56]

Originally Posted by JayUtah

One of the law professors who authored the paper laying out this roadmap is a never-Trumper conservative. On that basis you could argue that it shows poor confidence among conservatives in Trump's ability to defeat Biden and therefore the desire to replace him with a less volatile candidate.

Never-Trumpers are like Jews For Jesus, or Log Cabin Republicans. They simply no longer matter, or never did.

[ZiprHead]

Originally Posted by Hercules56

I think this is an extremely divisive and possibly dangerous road to go down.

We have two impeachments. We now have 4 indictments. We will likely have at least one felony conviction before Election Day. I think thats enough.

Let the American people decide if they want this felonious psychotic imbecile running the country again.

You sound like Mitch McConnel. No on the 2nd impeachment. The legal system should take care of it. Now that the legal system is acting MM says it should be up to the voter.

McConnell isn't a turtle. Turtles have spines. He's a snake.

[JayUtah]

Originally Posted by TurkeysGhost

Doubly so cat-nip for never Trump conservative weenies who are now totally irrelevant in the conservative movement and are politically homeless.

Originally Posted by Hercules56

Never-Trumpers are like Jews For Jesus, or Log Cabin Republicans. They simply no longer matter, or never did.

I don't dispute the minority of conservatives who disfavor Trump. My point is that as long as people are willing to speculate on political motives for applying the 14th Amendment this way, the contestants aren't going to be purely monochromatic. As far as the overall speculation goes, I actually agree with Brainster and others: I really don't expect anyone to try this. The fact that it's legally permissible doesn't make it advantageous or wise.

[ZiprHead]

Originally Posted by Hercules56

Whatever.

This is a foolish, petty and dangerous idea.

No. What's foolish is letting Trump anywhere near any public office?

Petty? He has committed probably the biggest breach our security system has ever experienced. He cheated the electoral system that got his lawyer a three year sentence. He raped a woman, FG'sS. And he tried to commit a coup against this nation.

[Mike!]

Originally Posted by ZiprHead

You sound like Mitch McConnel. No on the 2nd impeachment. The legal system should take care of it. Now that the legal system is acting MM says it should be up to the voter.

McConnell isn't a turtle. Turtles have spines. He's a snake.

Pretty sure snakes have spines too. Maybe a worm?

[Hercules56]

Originally Posted by ZiprHead

No. What's foolish is letting Trump anywhere near any public office?....

Its called an Election. We should try it.

Scared Biden can't beat him? You should be.

[jt512]

Originally Posted by Hercules56

Cool. Who in each state gets to decide if a person is disqualified under the 14th amendment? Does the accused person have the right to appeal? Is this designation open to court review and reversal? All the way up to the Supreme Court?

Why do you keep asking questions that have been answered repeatedly in the thread and in the linked articles, especially after it has been pointed out to you repeatedly that those questions have already been so addressed?

[jt512]

Originally Posted by Hercules56

Ok so basically we should ask the supreme Court to right now decide if Donald Trump can be legally disqualified from running for president based on the 14th amendment. Im sure the 6 to 3 Conservative majority court will side with Trump.

If you think that, then you haven’t been paying attention to the Court’s rulings on matters pertaining to Trump’s interests.

[Brainster]

Originally Posted by TurkeysGhost

Doubly so cat-nip for never Trump conservative weenies who are now totally irrelevant in the conservative movement and are politically homeless.

Ouch! But you're right except for the weenies part. You should appreciate the never-Trumpers; they're the reason Biden won.

[Hercules56]

Originally Posted by jt512

If you think that, then you haven’t been paying attention to the Court’s rulings on matters pertaining to Trump’s interests.

Dobbs and Bruen told us everything we need to know.

[Stacyhs]

Originally Posted by bruto

I imagine that's the basic intent, but high rank is not mentioned in the amendment; rather it states that the disqualification is for those who had previously made an oath of loyalty to the Constitution.

So as far as I can see, a person who was a private but held any Federal or State position that required an oath would be disqualified, but an officer who never worked for any government before the Confederacy would not. If rank is assumed here, it's political not military.

Yes, that was the intent, and I stand corrected. However, amnesty was granted easily by 10 hears after the Civil War and many ex-Confederate officers again held public office.

[Stacyhs]

Originally Posted by Hercules56

I think this is an extremely divisive and possibly dangerous road to go down.

We have two impeachments. We now have 4 indictments. We will likely have at least one felony conviction before Election Day. I think thats enough.

Let the American people decide if they want this felonious psychotic imbecile running the country again.

Sadly, the lunatics may take over the asylum, but they're still lunatics.

[bruto]

Originally Posted by theprestige

I would argue that holding elected office is a right, not of the elected official, but of the people that elected him. Otherwise, what's the point of having elections?

Being a right, abridging it is not something that should be done lightly, or out of partisan political expedience.

In the case of a technically unqualified candidate, can the people then just ignore the qualifications? If so on what grounds could a president be impeached at all? In fact, you might not be able to disqualify a winner known all along to be unfit or unqualified, if the people chose him. Your position seems to nullify the Constitutional rule for qualification, unless you extend that disqualification to seeking the office as well as holding it, which I suspect could be seen as a violation of free speech.

We need our democracy to be stable and able to withstand transient shocks, and I would have thought one of the reasons we have a Constitution at all is so that the form and rules of our government are not as fluid as the momentary will of the majority. One of those rules is about who may be President, and it trumps the vote of the majority, I think.

[jt512]

Originally Posted by Hercules56

Dobbs and Bruen told us everything we need to know.

They didn’t, but apparently the told you everything you need to know.

[Hercules56]

Maybe DeSantis will improve his poll numbers and it wont be necessary to try to disqualify Trump. But if that doesn't happen, the disqualification route will have to be attempted. What other options are there if that fails?

[Darat]

Originally Posted by Hercules56

Its called an Election. We should try it.

Scared Biden can't beat him? You should be.

Biden has already beaten him.

[dann]

... and the scared conservatives are afraid to acknowledge the fact.
The irrationality of conservatism - Knowledge, science and truth are the best remedies against reactionary thinking (Granma.cu, Aug 18, 2023)

[Dave Rogers]

Originally Posted by Hercules56

Its called an Election. We should try it.

Scared Biden can't beat him? You should be.

The whole point of the 14th Amendment argument is that, even though an election was tried and Biden beat Trump, Trump refused to abide by the results of the election, and his entourage concocted a scheme that came worryingly close to overturning them. He isn't in a position of power for the next one but will probably at least try to do something similar if he loses; and if he wins, will probably try to effectively abolish meaningful elections from then on.

Also, if having in insurrectionist in power is no big deal and the people can be trusted not to vote for one, why is the relevant section of the 14th Amendment deemed necessary?

Dave

[Hercules56]

Originally Posted by Dave Rogers

The whole point of the 14th Amendment argument is that, even though an election was tried and Biden beat Trump, Trump refused to abide by the results of the election, and his entourage concocted a scheme that came worryingly close to overturning them. He isn't in a position of power for the next one but will probably at least try to do something similar if he loses; and if he wins, will probably try to effectively abolish meaningful elections from then on.

Also, if having in insurrectionist in power is no big deal and the people can be trusted not to vote for one, why is the relevant section of the 14th Amendment deemed necessary?

Dave

As long as the Supreme Court has the final say on who qualifies as an Insurrectionist, its all good.

Im just wondering how we will stop Trump from being President again if SCOTUS decides Trump did not participate in an insurrection?

[Dave Rogers]

Originally Posted by Hercules56

As long as the Supreme Court has the final say on who qualifies as an Insurrectionist, its all good.

Ultimately, it would inevitably come down to that, as has been clearly explained several times.

Originally Posted by Hercules56

just wondering how we will stop Trump from being President again if SCOTUS decides Trump did not participate in an insurrection?

As far as I can see, the accepted procedure is that (a) he needs to lose the election by more than about 4.5 million votes, and (b) there are either enough people of principle in the Republican party or enough people with spines in the Democratic party to frustrate whatever nefarious scheme he concocts in the meantime to seize power unlawfully.

Dave

[bruto]

Originally Posted by Dave Rogers

The whole point of the 14th Amendment argument is that, even though an election was tried and Biden beat Trump, Trump refused to abide by the results of the election, and his entourage concocted a scheme that came worryingly close to overturning them. He isn't in a position of power for the next one but will probably at least try to do something similar if he loses; and if he wins, will probably try to effectively abolish meaningful elections from then on.

Also, if having in insurrectionist in power is no big deal and the people can be trusted not to vote for one, why is the relevant section of the 14th Amendment deemed necessary?

Dave

Looking at even the legal as well as the informal definition of insurrection, it seems a case could be made that election denial itself, if it passes beyond free speech and passes into attempts or incitements to impede the operation of Congress, would qualify. The exact content of the violence and who did exactly what seems only peripheral to the question of whether Trump urged the obstruction of the process.

When a President declares an election unacceptable (as he did even before it happened) and urges "stop the steal," and similar things, he's not just mouthing off, he's telling someone to do some stopping of something specific, and extra-legal. I think that Trump's actions were (and still are) inherently insurrectionist, and could be deemed so even if nobody in the Judicial department has dared to make a criminal case of it.

Due process, sure, but in this case the due process should be a result, not a condition, of implementing the 14th Amendment.

Otherwise, we're approaching the logical knot of saying a person cannot be charged with a crime unless he's already been convicted of it.

[Hercules56]

Originally Posted by Dave Rogers

Ultimately, it would inevitably come down to that, as has been clearly explained several times.



As far as I can see, the accepted procedure is that (a) he needs to lose the election by more than about 4.5 million votes, and (b) there are either enough people of principle in the Republican party or enough people with spines in the Democratic party to frustrate whatever nefarious scheme he concocts in the meantime to seize power unlawfully.

Dave

What are the other ways we can stop him from being president besides defeating him in the election and trying to remove him from the ballot?

[Dave Rogers]

Originally Posted by Hercules56

What are the other ways we can stop him from being president besides defeating him in the election and trying to remove him from the ballot?

Anti-ageing drugs, so that technically he isn't old enough. That or time travel.

Dave

[Hercules56]

Originally Posted by Dave Rogers

Anti-ageing drugs, so that technically he isn't old enough. That or time travel.

Dave

What about preemptive impeachment?

[theprestige]

Originally Posted by bruto

In the case of a technically unqualified candidate, can the people then just ignore the qualifications? If so on what grounds could a president be impeached at all? In fact, you might not be able to disqualify a winner known all along to be unfit or unqualified, if the people chose him. Your position seems to nullify the Constitutional rule for qualification, unless you extend that disqualification to seeking the office as well as holding it, which I suspect could be seen as a violation of free speech.

We need our democracy to be stable and able to withstand transient shocks, and I would have thought one of the reasons we have a Constitution at all is so that the form and rules of our government are not as fluid as the momentary will of the majority. One of those rules is about who may be President, and it trumps the vote of the majority, I think.

I'm not saying we should nullify any rules. I'm saying we should have good rules, and follow them carefully, and craft them with the right of the people to have their elected office-holder take office firmly in mind.

Obviously exceptions should be made. But the bar for making exceptions should be high, and the process for acting on an exception should be fairly rigorous. The presidential impeachment process, for example. While it does allow for partisan political expedience, it requires substantial buy-in from both parties, in both houses. It's very difficult to impeach a president just because he's royally pissed off one party - as we have seen.

Other exceptions have been codified as qualifying requirements in the Constitution via a democratic process, and are generally accepted. The process for adding more qualifying requirements to the Constitution is also fairly rigorous.

That's all good, in my opinion.

"Well I feel like what you're doing is insurrection, so I'm a priori disqualifying you from getting on the ballot" does not seem sufficiently rigorous to me, to justify abrogating the human right to campaign for office, nor the people's right to have their (otherwise qualified) elected official take the office to which he has been elected.

[Dave Rogers]

Originally Posted by Hercules56

What about preemptive impeachment?

With a Republican majority in Congress and a Senate that needs a tie-breaker? Good luck with that.

Dave

[Hercules56]

Originally Posted by Dave Rogers

With a Republican majority in Congress and a Senate that needs a tie-breaker? Good luck with that.

Dave

I will write my Congressman to give it a shot. Can't hurt.

[Dave Rogers]

Originally Posted by Hercules56

I will write my Congressman to give it a shot. Can't hurt.

A Democrat will probably say "I would support any such initiative but there is currently no chance of it succeeding." A centrist Republican would probably make up a double jeopardy rule, or just ignore you. And a MAGA Republican would pass your details on to the local 2nd Amendment supporters. But don't let me discourage you.

Dave

[Hercules56]

Originally Posted by Dave Rogers

A Democrat will probably say "I would support any such initiative but there is currently no chance of it succeeding." A centrist Republican would probably make up a double jeopardy rule, or just ignore you. And a MAGA Republican would pass your details on to the local 2nd Amendment supporters. But don't let me discourage you.

Dave

Not interested, but thank you. If there is a 1% chance it will work, its worth the effort.

[bruto]

Originally Posted by theprestige

I'm not saying we should nullify any rules. I'm saying we should have good rules, and follow them carefully, and craft them with the right of the people to have their elected office-holder take office firmly in mind.

Obviously exceptions should be made. But the bar for making exceptions should be high, and the process for acting on an exception should be fairly rigorous. The presidential impeachment process, for example. While it does allow for partisan political expedience, it requires substantial buy-in from both parties, in both houses. It's very difficult to impeach a president just because he's royally pissed off one party - as we have seen.

Other exceptions have been codified as qualifying requirements in the Constitution via a democratic process, and are generally accepted. The process for adding more qualifying requirements to the Constitution is also fairly rigorous.

That's all good, in my opinion.

"Well I feel like what you're doing is insurrection, so I'm a priori disqualifying you from getting on the ballot" does not seem sufficiently rigorous to me, to justify abrogating the human right to campaign for office, nor the people's right to have their (otherwise qualified) elected official take the office to which he has been elected.

I think we're basically in agreement on principles, but differ on whether the rules are already good, whether the 14th Amendment is already codified enough to use, and where some boundaries lie. For example, the electoral college system already overrides the right of the people, for some definitions of the people.

And there is a difference between saying "Well I feel like...etc." and challenging a candidate without a prior criminal conviction. I really do believe that it does not matter so much whether one or the other district attorney or judicial agency has brought and completed a criminal case, when the candidate in question has openly, on the record, declared that he would not accept electoral defeat, and has openly, and on the record, declared his support and encouragement of those who engaged in an insurrection (which has, at least in some instances, been judged to be one).

There's a risk of a kind of catch-22 here if you cannot accuse someone of ineligibility unless it's already been proven. I'm not convinced "innocent until proven guilty" applies in this case, but even where it does, it does not equal immunity. The right to contest a charge that is made is not the same thing as the right to contest the making of it.

[JayUtah]

Originally Posted by bruto

I think we're basically in agreement on principles, but differ on whether the rules are already good, whether the 14th Amendment is already codified enough to use, and where some boundaries lie. For example, the electoral college system already overrides the right of the people, for some definitions of the people.

And there is also gerrymandering, which effectively negates the votes of vast categories of people yet is somehow still strangely permitted.

The Framers wrestled with the power of the vote in no small way. They did not believe that the will of the voters should be paramount. They did not trust the average voter, even in 1789. They unironically feared that mob-elected demagogues would ruin the country irrevocably. The reason you have to be 30 years old to be a Senator but only 25 to be a Representative was in the hope that the Senate would be a wiser, more deliberative body by design. Some of the straightforwardly determined criteria for President have similar stories. In the end, the Framers clearly intended some elements of their architecture to be outside the meddling of the plebiscite—for their own good, apparently.

As mentioned, the Electoral College (as originally formulated) was just such a feature. Afraid that a demagogue President would wield far too much power to the detriment of both the institutions of the nation and the people they serve, the Framers mandated an indirection that would hopefully allow more sober electors—in their patrician judgment—to fend off a populist takeover and a rascal President. Whether that was wise is a matter of heated ongoing debate, and the insulative operation of the College has been largely eliminated by subsequent statute. But this is the mind of those who designed our government and conceived of what might be an appropriate patrician limit to a plebeian mob. While all power in the Constitute derives from We the People, it doesn't flow directly from there into some notion of a supremacy of the plebiscite.

But the insurrection etc. clauses of the 14th Amendment really are a problematic animal, aren't they?

To be a Senator, you need to be 30 years old, 9 years a U.S. citizen, and an "inhabitant" of the state that elects you. These days it is trivial to prove one's age and citizenship to a legally cognizable extent. The inhabitancy requirement is also fairly trivial: if, on Election Day, you can point to a domicile within the state boundaries that you are legally permitted to occupy, you're an inhabitant. (Orrin Hatch, the distinguished Senator "from" Utah, infamously lived most of his time in his actual home state of Pennsylvania and maintained only the briefest tenancy at the house he owned in our state.) Still, these are easy questions to answer for some person as they are matters of objectively determinable fact.

Determining whether someone has engaged in "insurrection" or any of the other prohibited acts is not a matter simply of documenting a relatively straightforward fact. Yes, even age and citizenship are technically subject to challenge, but at best those would be questions about the validity of the evidence presented. There's no question about what facts that evidence would need to establish. "Insurrection" is not so clear a target.

Thanks to the discussion in this thread, it's clear how such a determination of "insurrection" might proceed and how it might defensibly balance the will of the people with the intent of the law. And that intent is not trivial—at least it wasn't in 1866. The Constitution singles out only a few activities for special mention and treatment: treason, bribery, insurrection, etc. The rest are left to Congress and the courts, their statutes and judgments. The Constitution as a whole is not adverse to such individual mentions, nor to the broader issue of placing certain possibilities beyond the voters' reach, no matter how adamantly they may desire them. In the wake of a civil war, a loyalty requirement made sense. On the possible cusp of another, it might still.

But you can't deny that the "squishy" qualification that a candidate remain unsullied by participating in an insurrection stands apart from the solid and straightforward qualifications, not only by the mode and effort of its enforcement but also its encroachment upon the general desire for representation unfettered by restrictions the voters cannot remove.

[ahhell]

Originally Posted by Hercules56

Not interested, but thank you. If there is a 1% chance it will work, its worth the effort.

Not really, it will play in to the Trump and the MAGA crowds persecution complex and won't accommplish anything.

[Hercules56]

Originally Posted by ahhell

Not really, it will play in to the Trump and the MAGA crowds persecution complex and won't accommplish anything.

But it may work, so its worth a shot!

[ahhell]

Originally Posted by Hercules56

But it may work, so its worth a shot!

I can't tell if you your serious, thats a comic trope.

Girl, not unless you were the last man on earth.
Boy, so, you're saying there's a chance!

[Beerina]

Originally Posted by Hercules56

I dont like 66 votes to convict. Its too extreme a tyranny of the minority.

I think supermajority of 60 is better. But again we'd have to amend the USC.

Turn that frown upside down! You do not want easy removal of an elected official. In more brutal terms, a supermajority is needed because the actions must be so bad, the president's supporters turn against him. Getting his political opposition to support his removal, even just facetiously, is easy. You wanna undo an election? Prove he's bad to his own supporters.

This makes it much less a political fight. Nixon could not clear this political fight hurdle, and so resigned. Trump and Clinton did.