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Notes -
Trump case out on him being an insurrectionists.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-719_19m2.pdf
Compared to the Reddit debates and how the SC would prevent this as a non-lawyer I thought the opinion was fairly basic and simple. It seems to me that they just declared it a Feds power in Federal elections and the States don’t get a say. Personally, I did come to a belief that it was self-executing.
I think they avoided really touching on all the novel legal theories both ways going around on Reddit or twitter.
It came down to what I believe was one of my original views that letting States have any say in declaring someone an insurrectionists would be a complete clusterfuck and basically turn into state legislatures electing Presidents. Therefore they declared it a federal power.
I would call this pragmatic versus legally correct in my opinion. They avoided 100 page treatise on whether the President is an office holder.
I predicted something between 7-2 and 9-0. 9-0 seems better for the nation.
What's not legally-correct about it?
Honestly reading thru comments it sort of feels to me that the 14th was never a valid law.
It reads to me like it’s self executing. But self-executing doesn’t work for anything we view as a valid law.
If a poll worker saw a Trump ballot and it’s self executing I don’t have a valid argument for why they can’t just throw the ballots out.
But a different poll worker would view those as valid votes. Both can’t be true at the same time.
With everyone and no one having authority it see like an unlaw to me.
I think the issue is that at the time, basically everyone knew who rebelled. They really weren't thinking about future insurrections.
Basically agree.
In 1870 what counted as insurrection was much more like are you 35 years old with a very defined meaning. In 1870 it meant were you a member of the confederate army.
Which I would tend to think the SC basically just deleted this part of the 14th amendment as no longer existing as we no longer have any confederate soldiers still alive.
Consider that a lot of former confederates actually served in the American government. Lots of them were elected to the Senate. Look to this example, for Republicans objecting over the appointment of a Democrat to a leadership position, not for his prior Confederate status, but over procedural irregularities:
https://www.senate.gov/about/officers-staff/secretary-of-the-senate/confederate-general-becomes-secretary-of-the-senate.htm
To be disqualified by the Fourteenth Amendment, you had to be holding office, or to have resigned from an office with the term still unexpired, at the time you committed insurrection.
It just says "having previously taken an oath" - shouldn't that apply to former office-holders as well, even if their term(s) ended before the insurrection?
(still doesn't seem like it should have applied to Cox, who was neither a present nor former office-holder before the Civil War)
It appears there was some discussion of that, and an amendment to make it explicit that it did not was defeated, but it's not clear how it was actually enforced.
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