A Fourteenth Amendment Solution?
By I’m kind of surprised this hasn’t been posted before, but some prominent conservative legal experts are proposing that Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment disqualifies Donald Trump and a few of his friends from ever serving in elective office again.
This protection, embodied in the amendment’s often-overlooked Section 3, automatically excludes from future office and position of power in the United States government—and also from any equivalent office and position of power in the sovereign states and their subdivisions—any person who has taken an oath to support and defend our Constitution and thereafter rebels against that sacred charter, either through overt insurrection or by giving aid or comfort to the Constitution’s enemies.
They argue that there need not be a conviction, that the indictments suffice for disqualification.
The disqualification clause operates independently of any such criminal proceedings and, indeed, also independently of impeachment proceedings and of congressional legislation. The clause was designed to operate directly and immediately upon those who betray their oaths to the Constitution, whether by taking up arms to overturn our government or by waging war on our government by attempting to overturn a presidential election through a bloodless coup.
Of course, there’s a catch.
The most pressing constitutional question facing our country at this moment, then, is whether we will abide by this clear command of the Fourteenth Amendment’s disqualification clause.
If I am reading this right, people in charge of ballots at the state and local level can just say “Nope, not this indicted traitor,” and memory hole The Donald’s petition to be put on the ballot. Same thing with New Mexico’s own Couy Griffin, for whom this was found to be the case in court.
Because IANAL, I am wondering what our legal staff have to say.