This litigation was based on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which says "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...."
There are several reasons why that shouldn't be a reason to exclude Trump from the ballot, but the one the Minnesota court relied on was that "there is no state statute that prohibits a major political party from placing on the presidential nomination primary ballot, or sending delegates to the national convention supporting, a candidate who is ineligible to hold office."
[In Powell v. McCormack] we observed that "[b]efore the New York convention [ratifying the U.S. Constitution, Alexander] Hamilton emphasized: 'The true principle of a republic is, that the people should choose whom they please to govern them. Representation is imperfect in proportion as the current of popular favor is checked. This great source of free government, popular election, should be perfectly pure, and the most unbounded liberty allowed.'"
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25 comments:
Ray Epps. Can he run? He is amazing. He did all sorts of insurrection - and got away with it.
As a fed - he has the experience democrats want... and need.
But in dicta, the Court invited a second lawsuit after the primary.
Never seen anything like that.
On that basis we should also exclude Biden, for failure to enforce our national border, failure to arrest and prosecute thousands of blm perpetrators, and for coercing the media to advance Covid disinformation which enabled him to seize “emergency” powers fraudulently.
My understanding is that President Trump has not been charged with "insurrection" in any of his current legal proceedings. Wouldn't he have to be convicted 1st before any talk of removing him from the ballot? Please correct me if I am wrong.
It’s not the angle Washington wants to use to keep him off the ballot. Why? Maybe they have a thing what works better in other states. Maybe it gives GOP too much time to field another candidate. We’ll all know next summer…
When they say two wrongs don’t make a right, Minnesota says hold my beer.
And here I would have thought that the presumption of innocence in light of the fact that Trump has not been convicted of any of those would be all a court would need. ANY judge who did not rule on that basis and that basis alone is suspect. But Democrats are all about ignoring the presumption of innocence when it comes to their political opponents. Reason enough to never vote for a Democrat.
Also the President isn't an officer.
Tim said..."Reason enough to never vote for a Democrat."
Should be reason enough to exterminate all Democrats. Pursue them from the rivers to the sea.
Blogger Dave Begley said...
"But in dicta, the Court invited a second lawsuit after the primary.
Never seen anything like that."
Dems want him on the primary ballot. I continue to believe democrats will keep Trump from a second term by keeping him off the ballot. It will only take one or two well-placed states.
Did the brief contain the word 'ackshually' anywhere?
It helps to remember, Russians notwithstanding, in the leftard universe merely suggesting the election was irregular is an insurrection.
Their legal argument, such as it is, is that there is nothing in the 14th amendment giving power to a specific office to determine if someone has engaged in an "insurrection," so any judge or even state government secretary of state or governor can do so. I think the inference and history is clear that only the federal congress can do that, but lawfare gonna lawfare.
"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
This does not prohibit an insurrectionist from being elected teh President, because the Presidency is NOT an "office, civil or military, under the United States".
"Senator or Representative in Congress" is clearly not an "office, civil or military, under the United States". Because if it was, then it wouldn't be mentioned. There is no way you can claim that those aren't, but the President is.
"as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States" because those two are different.
There 4 types of people who claim the 14th could possibly apply to Trump:
1: Legal ignoramuses
2: People who've spent no time thinking about it, and are just spouting whatever they are told to spout
3: Liars
4: Morons
Glad to see teh MN SC decided not to firmly plant themselves in one of those 4 categories
I apparently missed the news release of Donald Trump being found guilty of treason and insurrection. You can’t take his rights away with out due process.
"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
So, for those wonder "what was the purpose of this?" The purpose of that was to keep Southern voters from electing to office pretty much anyone who was anything in the Confederacy
Since there weren't enough electoral votes in the South to elect a president, they weren't worried about the South electing a traitor to the White House, so they didn't ban it. They WERE worried about some Democrat President appointing one of those traitors to a position in the Federal gov't, which is why they banned that (that would be 'hold any office, civil or military, under the United States')
There was no insurrection, there has been no holding by any formal body that Trump has been involved in an insurrection. This was a frivolous case. The losers should pay all costs and their lawyers should be sanctioned.
An understaffed crowd control, a riot forced by police assault, a woman fleeing domestic abuse... aborted with prejudice, a probable Whitmer-event, and handmade tales published ad infinitum. Diverse irregularities and fraud demonstrated in court where Americans were recognized to have standing to challenge Democratic decree.
"I apparently missed the news release of Donald Trump being found guilty of treason and insurrection. You can’t take his rights away with out due process."
It's called Lawfare. It's what democrats do.
There was no insurrection
Elderly women with knitting needles for audits. The scalpels were drawn and wielded by the democratic authorities. Take a knee or we'll kick you, again.
Should former Confederates really be regarded as "traitors"? The South purported to secede and then fought a war of independence that it lost. That strikes me as quite different from a Benedict Arnold or Robert Hansen, who PURPORT to remain loyal officers of a government but who are surreptitiously working for the other side.
We now accept, as a RESULT of the Civil War, that states don't have the legal right to secede from the U.S. But that was by no means universally understood in 1860. Nothing in the Constitution forbade states from seceding. And the principles laid out in the Declaration of Independence suggested by analogy that the South had a right to secede if the U.S. government as a whole was trampling on its rights.
I'm not saying that I agree that the Southern states were right about secession, or that they should have won, or that their ultimate goals in setting up their own, independent country were in any way laudable. I'm just focusing on whether Southerners who stayed loyal to their states and therefore fought on the side of secession should be regarded as "traitors" if they did not continue to hold some commission or office with the Union government or otherwise purport to be loyal to the U.S.
This section of the 14th amendment seems to be very flexible. Joe Wheeler was a Confederate Major Gen. Yet served 7 terms in the US house after the war, and became commander of the US Cavalry Div in the Spanish American War. He was made Brig Gen in the Regular Army. So Joe even double dipped in two violations. So some people escaped the clutches of the law, I can’t find anyone who was actually prevented from serving under it. But it’s still on the books 150 years later and can be trotted out to serve Democrat fantasies. If it has not been enforced for 150 years it is a perfect law to be used against trump, because the spectacle requires it.
They'll re-raise the lawsuit right before the General Election. It will be a loser, but it will cause enough Minnesotans to shy away from Trump to make a discernible difference.
But, in Minnesota, that's kind of a waste of time. The only state to vote for Mondale - and which is now much more progressive than it was then - ain't going to vote for Trump anyway.
Bobby said...
"They'll re-raise the lawsuit right before the General Election. It will be a loser, but it will cause enough Minnesotans to shy away from Trump to make a discernible difference.
But, in Minnesota, that's kind of a waste of time. The only state to vote for Mondale - and which is now much more progressive than it was then - ain't going to vote for Trump anyway."
It's not about Minnesota. It is about the same thing all of the other lawfare is about, which is to cast enough smoke to make voters in swing states hesitate to vote R. It only took about 43,000 voters to switch last time.
Bobby said...
But, in Minnesota, that's kind of a waste of time. The only state to vote for Mondale - and which is now much more progressive than it was then - ain't going to vote for Trump anyway."
In 2016 the margin between Hillary and Trump was less than the # of votes that went to McMuffin.
The "Democratic Farmer Labor" party has. lot of voters who are "Trump willing"
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