Section 3 of the 14th Amendment was written to keep former confederates from returning to government office.
"“If President Trump committed a heinous act worthy of disqualification, he should be disqualified for the sake of protecting our hallowed democratic system, regardless of whether citizens may wish to vote for him in Colorado,”
The Colorado Supreme Court on Tuesday barred Trump from the state’s ballot under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which prohibits anyone who swore an oath to support the Constitution and then “engaged in insurrection” against it from holding office.
“It is imperative for the political stability of the U.S. to get a definitive judicial resolution of these questions as soon as possible,” Rick Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, wrote shortly after the ruling.
Trump’s lawyers have argued that, technically, the president isn’t an officer “under the United States” — that it’s a legal term of art that refers to government appointees and therefore the provision doesn’t apply to him.
The majority opinion said the Colorado Supreme Court did have jurisdiction to decide the matter, that the presidency was clearly an office in the United States and that Trump’s actions related to the Capitol attack fit the insurrection clause, in part because he urged his supporters during a rally beforehand to fight.
That included a week of testimony from a handful of police and protesters who were at the Jan. 6 attack, two constitutional law professors and experts on a president’s emergency powers and on right-wing political speech..
“If President Trump committed a heinous act worthy of disqualification, he should be disqualified for the sake of protecting our hallowed democratic system, regardless of whether citizens may wish to vote for him in Colorado,” Samour concluded.
The original article contains 1,432 words, the summary contains 239 words. Saved 83%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Should amend it so that people who write-in a candidate disqualified from the ballot for such reasons should also be disqualified as voters for the next two cycles.
The naturalization clause of the constitution for presidential eligibility has never been tested, and actually is quite a complex interpretation, so it’s not absolute to say Arnie would be ineligible.
I strongly disagree. Voting should never be illegal or have legal repercussions. Ever. Not only is it protected speech under the first amendment, it's more importantly a critical part of our democratic system.
There should be stiff consequences for running for an office you know you are disqualified from, but casting a vote should never be illegal for legal voters.
Right, I don't agree that it should be a legal consequence.
I do however think it should be a moral consequence, a judgment visited on those who would cast such a ridiculous vote. The best way I've heard it termed, is that Trump isn't merely unqualified, he's unqualified squared, which is to say, if you think he's fit to be president, then you also aren't qualified.
Also noted is that the 14th Amendment is inherently undemocratic by design, preventing anyone from being able to vote in Confederate insurrectionists.
And, as said before, there are already instances in our country where voting illegally gets you jail time, so, like many other rights, it’s not completely unabridged at present time.
What’s amazing to me is that my original comment could be distilled down to “sure would be nice if treasonous voters supporting treasonous, disqualified candidates were also penalized for being treasonous”, with a measure that almost certainly would never happen, and you’re wasting your time arguing over this.
I didn’t even suggest they go to jail or face fines, just temporarily lose voting rights for a period of time to think about what they did.
Agreed, as long as liberals like you are also disqualified after voting not for what you believe in, but for voting against what you you find offensive.