Lemmy is always quick to throw hate on any neutral sounding comments, so let me say upfront before I get brigaded: Trump deserves to be kicked off of state ballots where applicable 100%…BUT:
- The GOP is petty, and this will certainly start a race for Red States to unjustifiably remove Biden from state ballots as well
- It’s certainly creating a standoff with the US Supreme Court to take up a ruling on the matter, which I unfortunately feel will favor Trump in the short-term
- The news about this is creating all kinds of positive sentiment for Trump and his bullshit rhetoric about being “unfairly targeted”
- It’s fostering a political war between states for future elections where the ruling state parties will just find reasons to kick opposition parties off ballots for no reason if no clear legal ruling is given to stop such things.
We really need some well defined election laws in the US to prevent things like this from even being questioned.
The alternative is what though? Trump is legally ineligible to run for office. So don’t enforce the law because Republicans might declare Biden illegally ineligible? Don’t enforce the law because someone might call it unfair and others might believe them? A political system where there aren’t any enforceable rules is so much worse in the long run.
There also isn’t a “standoff” with the Supreme Court. It’s literally their job to interpret and enforce the constitution. Everything’s working exactly as it was designed to.
Trump has not been LEGALLY defined to be intelligible due to any crimes yet. That’s the scary thing.
- Our federalist system explicitly allows elections to be run by states, and we’ve seen that over time those states have less and less in common. Given the structural power imbalances between states that tend to bubble to the surface during the electoral count, a political war between them was arguably already happening. This just adds another dynamic to the battle. Texas is threatening legal action against hospitals in Seattle for treating residents of Texas, for crying out loud, so clearly half the country is already engaged in a battle between states.
- If everything were to go back to normal today, the GOP would still try to remove future Democrats from ballots. If this had never happened, they’d still try to remove future Democrats from ballots. Just because they’re underhanded and feckless doesn’t mean we shouldn’t enforce 1 of the only 3 requirements to run for the presidency.
- A court of law did this, not a political party. A nonpartisan state supreme court, no less. And they made a clear legal ruling to justify it, in light of literally the only thing that’s explicitly disqualifying for the office. This isn’t being made up out of whole cloth, it’s been proven in a court of law and ruled upon by a team of judges. That’s where the decision should be made.
- I agree that we need well-defined election laws, but if all it took was a fake-tanned, loud-mouthed, wannabe dictator for the entire system to crumble into itself, I’m not sure we were long for this world anyway.
I’m not disagreeing with any of your points, but we have grey areas being exploited here simply because they aren’t explicitly defined as being illegal. Unless there is a defined FEDERAL ruling against any of which you mentioned, it’s going to create the shitstorm I mentioned.
I get the delineation between the two, but I’m simply saying we should have had legal precedent in place long before we got to this point. It’s super depressing, and extremely scary.
I’d say the best way is to get rid of the electoral college. Let the popular vote decide things.
It kills a lot of gerrymandering too.
Only need 65 more electoral votes to pledge.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact
Something I’ve wondered about this:
Is there any way to enforce this? Like say 80 more votes were pledged. An election happens and a bunch of states vote hard in the other direction from the (should be) winner. How do those states get forced to follow through and give the electoral votes?
… like I don’t believe politician’s words here. What binds the state to give its votes here? What happens if they just decide not to?
Would you say the same thing if a 18 year old was running for President? Like Trump, they don’t meet the minimum requirements for the job.
That’s what I thought was dumb about the dissent to the Colorado Supreme Court ruling. One of the judges said that while it’s an easy yes/no question if someone meets the qualifying age, it’s not as easy to determine if someone has engaged in an insurrection.
Which seemed pretty dumb to me, because I saw it live on TV and thought it was pretty straightforward.
Honestly? Yeah, no matter who the 18 year old is. This isn’t Ancient Macedonia where you can just fight everyone. An 18 year old has no place leading a country today unless something catastrophic happened and there are no other options. I’m not saying its impossible. I’m saying I’d prefer a president who is between the ages of 35-50.
You’re missing the point: https://www.usa.gov/requirements-for-presidential-candidates
The legal minimum age is 35. Your opinion of a 16 year old is irrelevant. Straight up they are not tall enough to ride the rollercoaster.
Just so happens to be the same if the courts find a 35 year old engaged in insurrection. The amendment exists for a reason and gives no stipulation of conviction.
Wow you’re right, I hate this take lol. That said, I appreciate your honesty and bravery to speak your mind, regardless of what a lot of people might think of it. It’s good to have actual discourse instead of an echo chamber on here.
Let’s kick all insurrectionist out of politics. Full stop. trump is a documented, fully verifiable insurrectionist, so clear to start with him.
It’s not removing trump from the ballot though, it’s removing all of a certain type of non-democratic coward from the ballot, trump coincidentally among their ranks as the leader of the moment.
I so hope the Supreme Court upholds Colorado’s ruling… It would be so amazing if this became a trend across the states.
Hopefully soon. The defense appealed the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling, so the next step is the US Supreme Court.
It’s worth noting that special council Jack Smith has requested an expedited appeal for his case against trump to skip straight to the US Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has agreed to see their arguments in consideration, and there is precedence for this from the Bush vs Gore election.
Be interesting to see how the US Supreme Court rules in both cases. There is clear corruption/bias in some of the Republican members, but with that so brazenly in the open right now, I wonder if they’ll feel compelled to rule reasonably to try to reestablish their legitimacy?
Guess we’ll see soon enough…
Supposing the Colorado ruling is upheld and the same thing happened elsewhere, does it create issues if a candidate that’s not even on the ballot in a state is elected to President? I know Presidential elections go through the Electoral College, but if half a dozen states are saying, “this candidate is disqualified for office because of insurrection.” If he then still goes on to win, how does that square? Can they declare him disqualified for the Presidency using the same logic? If enough states disqualify him, are we looking at the makings of Civil War 2, where Red/Blue states just won’t accept legally elected candidates and will preemptively disqualify each other’s candidates?
Trump may be a special case, but I think we’re going to start seeing red states try to block Biden or future candidates using similar logic (with likely made-up reasons), if it hasn’t already started. Impeachment can’t be used, assuming the House actually impeached Biden, since Trump would be disqualified as well, but I’m guessing they’d carefully tailor some sort of restrictions that were specific to Biden.
This is for the primary, not the general.
I’m going to say something unpopular, but try and understand I’m speaking legality, not what I think. So don’t downvote me for it.
Trump has not been charged and convicted of the federal crime of insurrection. Therefore, you can’t prevent him from being on a ballot for the crime of insurrection.
I’m not saying he didn’t incite insurrection. I’m saying that a federal court has not tried him for that crime and found him guilty.
I’m expecting SCOTUS will say the same seeing as the dissenting opinion in Colorado said that.
It is true he hasn’t been convicted.
The problem I see with that argument is that The law prohibiting insurrection, USC 18 § 2383 was passed in 1948. While Amendment 14 was Ratified in 1866.
So at that time, conviction for insurrection was not a requirement.
One may argue that due process wasn’t provided in Colorado, taking Trump off the ballot. Except it was. The initial trial was concerned with two main questions. First, did Trump partake in insurrection? Second, does the 14th apply?
The judge heard evidence provided by both sides in the case for each question and then, in the ruling, provided a detailed explanation for their reasoning that Trump did partake in insurrection but that the 14th did not apply.
I presume the Colorado Supreme Court offered similarly detailed justification for their ruling which upheld that Trump did insurrection but that the 14th does apply.
The 14th isn’t criminal law. It is concerned with the running of the government. Just like impeachment and subsequent conviction of a president doesn’t require the president to be charged with “high crimes and misdemeanors”, neither foes the 14th require conviction of a USC 18 (or any other) crime. The determination isn’t left to criminal trial it is up to legal proceedings separate from that.
Trump has not been charged and convicted of the federal crime of insurrection.
This is true and the best argument Trump has going for him. (fwiw, my non-expert guess is that this is what SCOTUS will say.) But there is nothing in the Insurrection Act that states that there must be a criminal conviction. Furthermore, were any confederate soldiers convicted of insurrection? It seems that the framers of the Act had no intention of getting a criminal conviction to keep Jefferson Davis from running.
So we are in a world where a future criminal trial could determine a consequence now. Platonically, Trump is guilty (or not) now. In what world could you get a criminal conviction of a president in four years? Serious, it can’t work like that. (doesn’t mean scotus won’t try.)
Edit: ‘s/Act/Clause/g’ <- that should fix the brainfart.
I think for the confederates it was different. There was an actual war fought, not a single event. Since reconstruction was about returning the south to the fold, they went easy on some things they probably shouldn’t. But, I don’t think any of the high level confederates really fought to get higher office.
Which, really, is the same situation here.
Legal experts have said that the federal crime of insurrection is actually impossible to prove in court, because there are limits to what’s admissible in a criminal trial, even if the full scope of what happened meets our common understanding of the word.
If SCOTUS takes the stance you’ve outlined, then they’ve effectively nullified the insurrection disqualifier unless/until Congress passes a law to give it more specific legs. It would mean that Biden could do exactly the same, or even worse, and they’d have preemptively green-lighted it as completely acceptable. To be clear, SCOTUS made exactly the same argument in the 1869 Griffin’s Case when they suggested that some amount of due process was required to invalidate an office holder. But even the right-wing Cato Institute clarifies that the rest of the 14th amendment is self-executing (i.e. it need not have enabling legislation), and that Griffin’s Case had special circumstances that applied only during Reconstruction.
The cynic in me expects that you’re right, and the right-wing Court will find an underhanded way to argue some kind of circular logic to keep Trump on the ballot, but the idealist in me would hope that they do the right thing (for once) and take a very straightforward disqualifier to its logical conclusion as the rest of us can see it plainly stated:
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.
It doesn’t say “has been convicted of the crime of insurrection”. It says, “engage in”. The act itself is sufficient to disqualify, whether or not it is charged and a conviction achieved.
The issue is that the Constitutional amendment simply says that anyone who has engaged in insurrection is ineligible, not that the person needs to be convicted. This is actually consistent with how it was historically used, since it was used to blanket ban people who participated in the Confederacy without actually putting them on trial for it.
The big, looming question is that if we’re not sure whether someone engaged in insurrection, is the standard of evidence lower than the evidence used to convict? If so, then whether he’s actually convicted has no bearing on his eligibility.
I’d like to kick him off the planet.
