The whole “he has to be convicted of insurrection” argument isn’t even the precedent. IANAL but Jefferson Davis and Robert E Lee weren’t even tried. Presumably the people who wrote the amendment would have had insurrection trials for Confederate officers and prominent politicians if they thought it was required to ban them from holding office. (Instead, they pardoned a lot of those people.)
I mean, obviously, I’m not naive. The current SCOTUS will find a way to allow Trump to run. Originalists abandon originalism whenever it’s convenient.
The whole “he has to be convicted of insurrection” argument isn’t even the precedent.
Even more important, the 14th Amendment says nothing about a requirement of conviction for the person to be excluded for eligibility because of insurrection. Specifically mentioning “conviction” as a requirement is used elsewhere in the Constitution for other things (impeachment as an example), so its not on the concept is foreign to the document.
The whole thing is kinda silly anyways since the primaries aren’t “real” elections. The RNC can pick any candidate they want regardless of the outcome of the primaries. They make their own rules so that can change them to whatever they want. For example because Trump has been removed from the ballot in Colorado (including as a write-in), the GOP is likely to petition the RNC to allow them to caucus, which is way less formal and more chaotic in my opinion, but is a loophole since there is no ballot.
Of course this all depends on what SCOTUS does with respect to the 14th amendment. Even that is kinda sketchy since, like you said, there have been candidates removed from ballots that were not convicted let alone even tried. Although Congress posthumously lifted the disqualification from Lee in 1975, and Davis in 1978. There was one candidate removed but he was actually convicted, a Victor Berger from Wisconsin. But even that conviction was overturned by SCOTUS and he later ran and won. I guess you could say no one really has the balls to test it properly.
The Victor Berger from Wisconsin one is so ridiculous. He engaged in no violent insurrection. But he was a socialist and published editorials. They tried to use the “given aid or comfort to the enemies” part to ban him from Congress
Honestly, I wish there had been trials and stuff during reconstruction.
This is what I am trying to find out about for myself. Does he need to be convicted of something somewhere? I was just looking for info about this yesterday and all I can find is Jack Smith and Colorado stuff. I care about 14th amendment stuff because nothing else matters.
cue the Nazi army to terrorize this Woman in 3,2,1 ~ fucking hate this timeline
Not all heroes wear capes!
Edit: here’s a mirror to a conservative Louisiana opinion piece. It’s written about as well as you would expect it to be.
Oh look, the traitors are doxxing her and implying stochastic terrorism.
These piles of trash need to be deported. They aren’t American any longer.
But, like, to where would they be deported? That typically implies sending them back to their place of origin, but in this case they’re almost always from the US. Perhaps exile would be a better term to use.
My proposal: exile them to Texas (let’s call it a “Texile”), and then let Texas have that independence they seem to so strongly desire.
A small island in the middle of the Pacific. They can live out their libertarian dream lives there
I say we find one of the most uninhabitable places and give them just a few acres. Texas has a lot of our resources. Let’s carve off some section of North Dakota or a place like that, and make sure it has no minerals underneath the soil and send them there to enjoy their “freedoms”.
Really surprised anyone in my state would bring this forward.
Even in solid red or blue states, there’s always 15-40% that consistently vote the other way. Maybe not in bumfuck county specifically, but overall throughout any given state, there’s at least 1-in-6 people who probably never vote Republican at worst, and more than 1-in-3 at best. That’s a lot of people.
Louisiana does look especially bad though - worse than being a Democrat in TX or FL even.
Very legal, very cool
