TL;DR NY Times predicts trump will remain on the ballet and the ruling will likely have a very narrow basis in hopes of achieving unanimous consensus from the court.
TL;DR NY Times predicts trump will remain on the ballet and the ruling will likely have a very narrow basis in hopes of achieving unanimous consensus from the court.
I can see where you might think that. I previously thought the same. I don’t think so anymore.
Because an insurrection against the government is fundamentally a criminal act, one would naturally think that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment would require a criminal conviction to apply. For most crimes you have to be convicted before there is a penalty. This is basic due process (which, BTW, is described in Section 1 of the 14th Amendment), however I don’t think that is the case here.
Section 3 of the 14th Amendment reads as follows:
Section 3 describes how participating in an insurrection will result in disqualification to hold office. It has no requirement for a criminal conviction. If a State believes that a person who previously took an oath to support the US Constitution engaged in an insurrection, then that person is disqualified from running for office. There is no due process requirement for disqualification due to age or citizenship, so there is no need for due process for any other disqualification.
If Congress feels that the person should be allowed to run for office, they can remove the qualification disability with a two-thirds vote in both houses.
The States can decide for themselves if Trump is disqualified, if Congress disagrees they alone have the ability to fix it.
Yup, Congresses vote is meant to serve as the check and balance as well as due process here. This is a civil matter, not criminal. It doesn’t matter if he was convicted. As you pointed out, we don’t requre such things on age or citizenship and we don’t require them here either.
There needs to be due process because … Hunter Biden … laptop … insurrection.
Now that this can of worms is open, someone will try to abuse it. Establishing due process sets a bar that future fascists know not to cross plus makes it harder to abuse for partisan manipulation