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Two conservative legal scholars, members of the Federalist Society in good standing, have just published an audacious argument: that Donald Trump is constitutionally prohibited from running for president, and that state election officials have not only the authority but the legal obligation to prevent his name from appearing on the ballot.
Spicy!
Wow, the federalist society has turned on him? Maybe that's not new, but it sure is crazy how much conservatives with power regret using him.
If he wins the nomination, they will explain that they were mistaken.
This will 1,000,000% be a thing mark my words. Conservatives are twister Grandmasters. Happily bending themselves into inhuman and unsurvivable knots
It's not a complex twist or something. It's really, really simple: They're lying.
You can ignore almost everything a conservative says. They're lying. To see what they think, look at what they are doing.
They say, "We want to stop government waste!" while ushering in unprecedented levels of corruption.
They say, "We believe in freedom of speech!" while leading the charge for the most overt, fascist, restrictive policies in decades.
They say, "Law and order!" while electing people involved in multiple federal criminal trials.
Look to what they do, not what they say.
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You guys should have let him win and end his second term.
All this crap is just elevating him to martyrdom, and god forbid you actually put him in jail before the elections. This has trendously backfire so many times throughout history. 100 years are gonna pass and you will still have people being trumpists wearing maga hats.
You're an idiot because that was going to happen either way, as they are already a cult. We need to face the fact that Trump is the new Joseph Smith/L Ron Hubbard/Jim Jones, leading his congregation of fascists. MAGA is going to be something we're going to be dealing with at least as long as Trump lives, if not longer.
Four more years of Trump would have allowed him to solidify his power and end democracy in the United States, he needed to be voted out, if not more direct means of removal.
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should have let him win
Actually made me laugh. Guys, democrats just need to let repubs win and not hold elected officials responsible for crimes in office, come on.
Nice try Donald
Should have let him "win"? First off his plan was thwarted by his own party, his own staff, and his own appointed judges. Virtually all his political opponents did is critism him from a distance.
But let's pretend that everyone should have helped steal the election, or voted for him out of fear (yikes), you really think this guy was ever gonna leave the white house, even after a 2nd term?
He's been hinting at being president for life a few times, and he was slowly replacing all the top positions in the country by loyalist. Meanwhile, his supporters were absolutely thrilled at the idea that Ivanka should be his successors, and that we should live under the Trump dynasty. After a 2nd term he would have pulled some shit, created a crisis out of his own to justify extending his presidential powers, and if he succeeded, that would have been it. He telegraphied his every move and a lot of peolle in 2016 already knew he would not leave willingly and call the next election rigged. He telegraphied wanting to be president for life, and you can be absolutely sure that he would not have stopped at a 2nd term.
Trump as a martyr is still better than Trump as POTUS. Believing that criminals should just get out of charges because of if their station or their potential martyrdom is the biggest issue with the US legal system. It creates a separate set of laws only for the rich and elite. The biggest failure through all of this legal stuff is that he's allowed to walk around free instead of spending time in jail like everyone else would. Lock him up and take away his social media access, and his message will be mitigated reducing the martyr effect.
When the federalist society is involved, in any capacity, you have to pause and see the bigger picture. A key player in/around that org is leonard leo. If you're not aware, Leo is in and around the stories of all of the conservative justices on the Supreme Court - including being a key facilitator in the recent overt corruption stories with thomas and alito (he's also the name that funnels money to "ginny" thomas, clarence thomas' batshit insane, Jan 6th supporting wife.
So this (from the article) is likely closer to the actual point of them publishing, to sow doubt and discord:
"But as a matter of politics, encouraging state election officials to go rogue and kick Trump off the ballot is a recipe for disaster. And that disconnect, between what the law says and the practical barriers to implementing it, speaks to some deep problems in American democracy that led to Trump’s insurrection in the first place."
They want that chaos. These aren't your friends and allies.
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It is important to note that trump still has the right to due process under s2 of the 14th, and will probably be the grounds for dismissal if there isn’t some sort of court hearing.
The NM case probably sets some precedent saying he doesn’t have to be convicted …. But I have no confidence in SCROTUS
I think, the problem is, somebody needs to challenge his elligibility in each and every state.
Like this guy:
It's not an AUTOMATIC disqualification, it still needs to be adjudicated... At least in enough states to take away 270 electoral votes.
It's not an AUTOMATIC disqualification, it still needs to be adjudicated
I might have mistaken what was written, but the scholars in the paper explicitly point out section 3 is 'self-executing'. ~Which means it does not require adjuducation.~ I was mistaken, see comment below.
If it happened before, that doesn't mean it was necessary.
"Self-executing" there means that the Constitutional prohibition doesn't require Congress to pass a law on the subject.
Some Constitutional provisions do require Congressional action to take effect. For instance, the income tax is authorized by the Sixteenth Amendment, but the amendment does not itself create an income tax; it just tells Congress that it may do so.
(The original Constitution did not allow an income tax, because it expected the federal government to fund itself from tariffs and from tax assessments from the states, which were required to be proportional to population.)
I would love to see it happen but will remain pessimistic. It seems all the wealthy people get away with whatever they want.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Baude and Paulsen’s paper, set to be published in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, focusing on plain-language readings on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment and the way its key terms were used in political discussion around the time of enactment.
If this interpretation is correct, then the legal case against Trump is fairly straightforward — all established by facts in public reporting, evidence from the January 6 committee, and the recent federal indictment.
Even if (let’s say) the members of a state board of elections think someone below the drinking age would make the best president in American history, the law is clear that such a person can’t hold office and thus can’t be permitted to run.
Every official involved in the US election system, from a local registrar to members of Congress, has an obligation to determine if candidates for the presidency and other high office are prohibited from running under Section 3.
Moreover, state election officials are not federal judges; the very existence of Griffin’s Case, however poorly reasoned, creates real doubt as to whether they are legally empowered to do what Baude and Paulsen are telling them they have to do.
Best case, there’s a write-in campaign to put Trump in the presidency, giving rise to a constitutional crisis if he won (since the Supreme Court would have ruled him ineligible in upholding the state officials’ actions).
I'm a bot and I'm open source!
I realized this on the 6th. It's the first thing that crossed my mind when I knew what was happening. I'm not a legal scholar; I'm a mathematician, so I'm wondering how it took so long for this to happen.
I think he's ineligible for office for so many reasons but this argument is pretty weak. It just won't go anywhere other than Lincoln Project masturbation.
I definitely don't want the guy to run, but allowing the government to decide who is allowed to run for a third of the government is a dangerous thing
I don't understand your argument, it's not the government, it's the laws of the nation.
No different than why a non-US citizen or someone under 35 cannot hold the office.
Technically, a 25-year-old can run for office of US President but not hold it.
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We've had laws around who can run for office since the founding of the US.
You must be born in the US, you must be over 35, you must not be convicted of impeachment. You can't have tried to succeed from the US.
There are other laws that have effectively banned who can run. Most states have ballot access laws.
Rules about who can run aren't dangerous, so long as they are fair. Barring someone from participating in democracy that has tried to subvert it is more than fair.
You can’t have tried to succeed from the US.
Psst: It’s “secede”
You can't have tried to succeed from the US.
Tbf, that one was added later, for good reason.
Allowing people to run for president who have a history of attempting to subvert democracy is decidedly more dangerous. Only a few specific crimes bar you from office and they are for good reason.
The government already decides who its voters are by gerrymandering being legal. That ship sailed decades ago. So why sound the alarm over this? Concern trolling?
"This dude just assassinated all the presidential candidates and admitted it. He just said he'll run for president. Don't let the government step in, okay?"
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this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2023
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