That much you got right
Here’s how the 14th Amendment could be used to prevent Trump from running again
kvlamis@businessinsider.com (Kelsey Vlamis) 8 hrs ago
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© SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images President Donald Trump speaks during an event commemorating the repatriation of Native American remains and artifacts from Finland in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, September 17, 2020. SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images
- Since the US Capitol siege, some lawmakers have said Trump should be barred from future office.
- The 14th Amendment could be the last option lawmakers have to accomplish this goal.
- However, legal scholars disagree about how, if at all, the bill could be applied in Trump’s case.
In the wake of the Capitol siege, some US lawmakers have called for President Donald Trump, and some of their congressional colleagues, to be removed from office or prevented from ever holding office again in the future - and they may invoke the 14th Amendment to do it.
The 14th Amendment was adopted in 1868 and is mostly known for granting citizenship rights and equal protection under the law to anyone born or naturalized in the US, including Black people and those formerly enslaved.
The amendment nullified the 1857 Supreme Court decision Dred Scott v. Sandford, which held that people of African descent could not be US citizens.
However, one section of the amendment blocks someone from holding office who, having previously made an oath to the Constitution, has “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the US.
Originally designed to prevent Confederates from serving in public office, it could now prevent Trump from running again
The intent at the time was to influence the government in the South by barring Confederates from serving in public office after the Civil War. “The idea was that office holders of the United States will not be people who were treasonous to the United States,” Doron Kalir, a professor at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, told Insider.
Here’s the full text of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment:
“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, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”
There are differing opinions among legal scholars on whether the amendment could actually be used in Trump’s case, and, if it were to be used, how exactly it would play out.
How it could be used against Trump
One uncertainty is whether or not the text can be applied to the office of the presidency. While it lists senators, representatives, and electors as positions from which a person could be barred, the presidency is not explicitly named.
“I’m not sure it applies to the president of the United States at all,” Kalir told Insider, adding that it’s unlikely the authors would have named those offices but not the presidency itself if they intended for it to apply.
More likely, he said, the section is meant to apply to senators and offices below that.
There is also uncertainty over exactly what the process would be for invoking the amendment to remove someone from office.
“It is not clear who should make the determination that the person has engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States,” Kalir said.
Some legal scholars think Congress itself can make that call, and that they can bar someone from office just by passing a law with a simple majority in both chambers. Under this scenario, the process would be relatively simple, as Democrats currently have majorities in both the Senate and the House.
But Kalir said that logic directly contradicts another section of the Constitution that effectively blocks Congress from acting as a court of law.
Therefore, some scholars don’t think Congress alone can use the 14th Amendment to ban someone, like Trump, from holding office. Instead, the process would likely require litigation in addition to legislation.
Federal prosecutors are investigating Trump’s role in inciting the insurrection on the Capitol, which could, in theory, lead to him being convicted in a court of law.
Such a conviction could give Congress the authority needed to then pass a law barring Trump from office on the premise that he has “engaged in insurrection or rebellion,” as the 14th Amendment states.
The amendment was invoked one time in more than a century to bar someone from office
There is some historical precedent, as the amendment has been used to bar someone from office, but only once in more than a century.
In 1919, Congress used the 14th Amendment to bar Victor Berger, a socialist from Wisconsin and an elected official, from joining the House because he actively opposed the US entering World War I.
In that case, a special committee convened and concluded that Berger was unfit for office. He was then barred by a simple majority in the Senate and House. Because of this, some believe congressional precedent shows only a simple majority is needed.
But Congress barring someone from joining its own body is notably different, Kalir said.
“To think that the US Congress could prevent someone from becoming president of the United States other than through impeachment is big - it’s a big legal leap.”
Berger’s case was also 102 years ago and there has been no use of this section since.
Kalir says if it were invoked today, it could be challenged in court and ultimately take years to play out.
More relevant (refer to McConnell’s “Lock him up!” speech)?
Hillary first
Parler is returning and will provide a platform enabling President Trump to respond to Biden’s scandalous anti-American decisions and actions:
Parler says it will be back online
Of special importance:
Parler said its return is not reliant upon Big Tech, but did not immediately respond to request for comment for details about its relaunch.
You can bet San Francisco’s ultra-liberal big tech interests will once again do everything in their power to extinguish Parler’s voice. I hope they fail!!
Well yeah, they are only reliant on USSR…
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It’s all he has done so far.
Right like the wall…I still don’t quite understand the hero worship of this guy. He was a poor businessman. He got ahead by his charisma and scandals that drew tabloid headlines.
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Texas is at present experiencing unusually cold weather. Texans need electric power, more now than ever. Texas unwisely relies on wind turbines for 25% of the state’s power generation.
The wind turbines have frozen
What the heck, they kill birds, are ugly, and are high maintenance even in good weather.
Wind turbines are freezing in Texas amid ‘unprecedented’ storm
My own natural gas (NG), which leaves my property via underground pipeline, continues beneath similar conditions to flow to my customers keeping their homes warm and keeping their electric power up. And I’m happy to be helping make other people’s living conditions safe and tolerable.
But the global warming fanatics are opposing even new NG pipelines. I assume they plan to rely on frozen windmills and solar arrays, the latter requiring sunshine of which there has been scant little lately.
I’d like to believe global warming crazies would get a clue when they and their kids are freezing in their darkened homes. But I know they would not.
You cannot fix stupid.
ETA
For head-in-the-sand global warming nut cases too certain of themselves to click, above, here is a lift:
Frozen wind turbines have caused almost half of Texas’s wind generation capacity to go offline in the midst of an “unprecedented storm”.
The Lone Star state is under a state of emergency after freezing conditions swept the region, causing dangerously icy roads and leaving nearly 3 million people without power.
Texas wind farms typically generate a total of 25,100 megawatts of energy, the Austin-American Statesman reported. On Sunday turbines accounting for 12,000 megawatts had iced over, Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which manages the state’s power grid, confirmed.
Trump supporters: Making America worse every way they can: This Postal Service head seems to sit in his office trying to think of ways he can make the Postal Service worse:
" US Postal Service chief Louis DeJoy intends to roll out a plan to raise postal rates and eliminate first-class mail deliveries, moves that are likely to lead to slower mail and higher costs passed on to customers, according to reports.
The potential cutbacks to first-class mail – which include letters, bills and other mail sent to local addresses – would eliminate two-day deliveries, and instead lump that mail into current three- and five-day tiers, the same as nonlocal mail.
Postmaster general Louis DeJoy – a top donor to Donald Trump – has already overseen dramatic rollbacks in service during the coronavirus pandemic, as the mail became a lifeline for deliveries, including medicine, and critical 2020 elections across the US depended on increased vote-by-mail options, with Americans avoiding in-person voting and shopping during the public health crisis.
By Christmas, more than one third of first-class mail was late, even as the agency rolled back some of its controversial cuts."
Certainly, no previous Postal Service head in history has managed to make Postal Service so much worse.
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Can’t be late if it’s never scheduled to be delivered.
Know how much wind power is frozen here in Ohio? None of it. We routinely see the kinds of weather Texas has, maybe you should get the Texas to make sure their windmills work.
/or hey, solar.
Actually, wind power in Texas isn’t the problem as the non-frozen turbines are producing more electricity than usual. In fact, there is more electricity than expected coming from wind turbines right now. One of Texas’s problems is they have one state wide grid without links to other states.
Oil refineries have shut down as well. This is a problem of freak weather, not any one technology.
" An ERCOT director told Bloomberg that problems were widespread across generating sources, including coal, natural gas, and even nuclear plants. In the past, severe cold has caused US supplies of natural gas to be constrained, as use in residential heating competes with its use in generating electricity. But that doesn’t explain the shortfalls in coal and nuclear, and the ERCOT executive wasn’t willing to speculate."
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"…wind only comprises 25% of the state’s energy mix this time of year. The majority of outages overnight were plants fueled by natural gas, coal and nuclear, which together make up more than two-thirds of power generation during winter.
“The wind is not solely to blame,” said Wade Schauer, research director of Americas power and renewables at Wood Mackenzie. He estimates that about 27 gigawatts of coal, nuclear and gas capacity is unavailable, in part because the cold has driven up demand for natural gas for heating. “That’s the bigger problem.”
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/frozen-wind-farms-just-small-002954294.html
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There are lots of wind turbines in Canada as well as northern Sweden, Finland, and Norway. Although cold weather can be a problem, it’s also a problem for other sources of power generation as well.
Iowa gets about 40% of its electricity from wind power and is also considerably north of Texas.
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Well shin, Argyll is sure trying to tear down your story on wind power…
I Just finished watching Tucker on FOX News tonight… He spent over half his program hour talking about the wind turbines & all the problems in Texas. His guest was Rick Perry & he told about the wind power disaster in West Texas. In fact power in Texas was cutting in & out while he was trying to finish the program
We also have the wind turbines in the hills outside Livermore, CA. They are very beautiful to gaze at on the drive over the pass heading to the Bay Area into SF. We call them the Wind Mills over the drive to San Francisco. Guess they are working quite well here.
Texas GOP 12-20-20 ‘We want to secede!’
Texas GOP 2-15-21 ‘We want US socialisms!’
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