375
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/politics@lemmy.world

Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia on Sunday said that he believes a strong legal argument can be made to use the 14th Amendment to remove former President Donald Trump from the ballot in 2024, citing Trump's actions related to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Shortly after Jan. 6, Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives for inciting an insurrection amid his push to overturn his election loss, with 10 Republicans and all Democrats voting to impeach him.

He denied any wrongdoing, and while seven members of his own party joined Democrats to support his conviction, he was ultimately acquitted by the Senate.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] Nougat@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

Okay ... that is really interesting, and something I hadn't noticed. And it's not the part you think.

... nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; ...

Even if "liberty" here includes the liberty to hold office (which it may not), the law we're talking about is constitutional. It is not a State who would be depriving the liberty, it would be the United States.

The part that is still catching me up, however, is this, just preceding the above:

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States ..., without due process of law."

If, like in the other clause, the liberty to hold office is a "privilege," does this prohibit States from enforcing this constitutional law? Because when the constitutional law has everything to do with elections, which are run only by the States, no body has jurisdiction to enforce.

If "due process of law" necessarily means "a judicial hearing" (not necessarily a criminal trial), that means that there must be input from a court before someone is disqualified.

So, we have two questions that need answering:

  • Is holding office a "privilege ... of citizens"?
  • Does due process of law mean "judicial trial"?

Both of those have to be "yes" in order for the disqualification under Section Three to be self-executing (the disqualification being immediate once the described conditions are met). Someone would have to make a legal and binding judgment.

However, if A14 S3 is not self-executing because of this kind of reasoning, then neither are any parts of the Constitution regarding qualification for office. Junior high kids could gain the office of Governor. Arnie could be President.

Even so, the person or group that would make that judgment might arguably be the State process for qualifying people from office, and the judgment could be communicated and recorded by the disqualification itself by that person or group.

Anyway - those bulleted questions above would need to be answered in order for me to go any further. I suspect one or the other of those answers is "no," but I can't really say. The kind of deep legal history study that would be required to answer those two is way beyond what I know.

This is the first time I've been plain stumped by this disqualification thing.

[-] Dkarma@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Being able to hold office is not a right. Nothing is being deprived. The state is not enforcing anything. They are denying a request to be on the ballot. It is not a right.

State elections commissions should decide this correctly.

No trial is needed and there is nowhere that says it is to determine insurrection.

This is in no way a criminal matter. It is extremely black and white in this case.

[-] Nougat@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

I wholly agree with you (as a walk through my comment history will demonstrate), but that "No State shall ... enforce" part definitely deserves a very close look by people much smarter than I am.

[-] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Yup. It’s all entirely untried- were in unknown waters.

That said, given the current composition of the SCROTUS, I’m fairly certain that any rulings that do come out will be extremely politicized. And not in the favor of democracy

[-] Nougat@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

Well, not really unknown. Section Three was used plenty to disqualify former Confederates, but that was easy, because everyone knew what they were talking about then. There had been an awful war.

this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2023
375 points (96.3% liked)

politics

19096 readers
1999 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS