The Colorado Supreme Court ruled last month that the former president could not appear on the state’s Republican primary ballot because he had engaged in insurrection.

The case turns on the meaning of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, ratified after the Civil War, which bars those who had taken an oath “to support the Constitution of the United States” from holding office if they then “shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”

  • IHeartBadCode
    93•11 months ago

    Oh and just for everyone to remember. The 39th Congress was the one that wrote the 14th Amendment. We weren’t some weeks old nation by that point and we literally have the minutes from that Congress discussing the 14th Amendment.

    It’s not some open question as to “does 14A S3 apply to the President”?

    Why did you omit to exclude them [The office of the President and Vice President]?

    — Sen. Reverdy Johnson (D-MD)

    Let me call the Senator’s attention to the words ‘or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States’

    — Sen. Lot Morrill (R-MA)

    Or does this apply to this instance or just the Civil War.

    This is to go into our Constitution and to stand to govern future insurrection as well as the present; and I should like to have that point definitely understood.

    — Sen. Peter G. Van Winkle (R-WV)

    It’s not some “well what did they mean by such-and-such? Oh we have no record of that.” No, no. We literally have the transcript for this one.

    The only open question is “does Colorado get to determine if Trump committed an act to disqualify him or not”. We literally have the answer for all the other stuff straight from the mouths of those who framed the 14th Amendment.

    • @Wrench
      23•11 months ago

      “Yes, but who cares what a bunch of old dead politicians from the past think”

      - Supreme justices that claim to be consitutionalists.

      • @FlowVoidEnglish
        10•11 months ago

        “Originalists”, not “constitutionalists”.

        • @Wrench
          3•11 months ago

          What’s the distinction? Originalist meaning the original, unamended constitution?

          That seems outside their authority. Their purpose, as I understand it, is rule on the letter of the law for the current constitution. The lawmakers, I.E. congress/senate, are who can amend the constitution.

          • @FlowVoidEnglish
            6•11 months ago

            There are different, competing philosophies of judicial interpretation.

            The current SCOTUS majority champions “originalism”, which means that judges must apply the meaning intended by whoever wrote a law. This often turns judges into part-time historians, trying to delve into the minds and attitudes of people who are long dead. But in this case, it’s pretty easy to determine that the Reconstructionists who wrote the 14th Amendment had no intention of letting an insurrectionist become president. So “officer” clearly includes the president.

            Originalism is in contrast to “textualism”, which means interpreting the actual text(s) of the law without worrying about what the authors intended. So “officer” must be defined according to how it’s used elsewhere in the Constitution, which (surprisingly) may result in something that the authors of the 14th Amendment never intended.

            There are also other competing philosophies, but right now these two are in conflict. The interesting thing is that the SCOTUS has to side against Trump if it actually believes in originalism (as opposed to using it as a pretext for their antiquated ideas).

            • @Wrench
              2•11 months ago

              Excellent explanation! Thank you!

      • themeatbridge
        12•11 months ago

        Yeah, but you’re forgetting that the SCOTUS is corrupt and cannot be trusted to fairly evaluate the facts.

      • Funderpants
        3•11 months ago

        Imagine you can be kept off the ballot for being five signatures short of a full page, but doing an insurrection isn’t a good reason. And the individual states can decide on the first thing but not the second. Wild.