My God! I would dearly love it If Trump were barred for eternity from ever holding any public office again. But unless Trump is convicted of insurrection, which Jack Smith has not even charged him with, and even if he were, there just seems so many ways this could all go sideways.
My God! I would dearly love it If Trump were barred for eternity from ever holding any public office again. But unless Trump is convicted of insurrection, which Jack Smith has not even charged him with, and even if he were, there just seems so many ways this could all go sideways.
Sad but true. This reminds me disturbingly of the "Trump committed treason" debate: in any MORAL sense Trump is obviously a traitor, but it is equally clear that in the LEGAL sense he is not, so that's not a serious argument. Similarly, as I stated below, I wish that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment were self-enforcing (I wish the same thing for the Emoluments Clauses), but the argument doesn't work for me. And if it worked for the drafters of the Amendment, they wouldn't have thought it necessary to include the Enforcement Clause of Section 5.
Barring someone from office based on Section 3 seems to require a more formal finding than "it sure looks like insurrection to ME!" by an informal bunch of randos, even there are a lot of us.
I agree with most of the cautions people are offering on this. However - my understanding is that the inclusion of an enforcement clause does not mean that the constitutional provision *can only* be upheld by statutes thereby enacted. Rather, it has been established to mean that Congress can enact laws addressing conduct which would not itself be unconstitutional, *in the service of* pursuing the constitutional objective. In short, an enforcement clause expands the realm of methods the government may use, not restricts it - "a positive grant of legislative power," in the words of Justice Brennan.
With or without an enforcement-by-statute clause, and with or without actual statutes, the constitutional language itself is still the highest law of the land, theoretically applicable to all public officials at all levels.
My God! I would dearly love it If Trump were barred for eternity from ever holding any public office again. But unless Trump is convicted of insurrection, which Jack Smith has not even charged him with, and even if he were, there just seems so many ways this could all go sideways.
Sad but true. This reminds me disturbingly of the "Trump committed treason" debate: in any MORAL sense Trump is obviously a traitor, but it is equally clear that in the LEGAL sense he is not, so that's not a serious argument. Similarly, as I stated below, I wish that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment were self-enforcing (I wish the same thing for the Emoluments Clauses), but the argument doesn't work for me. And if it worked for the drafters of the Amendment, they wouldn't have thought it necessary to include the Enforcement Clause of Section 5.
Barring someone from office based on Section 3 seems to require a more formal finding than "it sure looks like insurrection to ME!" by an informal bunch of randos, even there are a lot of us.
I agree with most of the cautions people are offering on this. However - my understanding is that the inclusion of an enforcement clause does not mean that the constitutional provision *can only* be upheld by statutes thereby enacted. Rather, it has been established to mean that Congress can enact laws addressing conduct which would not itself be unconstitutional, *in the service of* pursuing the constitutional objective. In short, an enforcement clause expands the realm of methods the government may use, not restricts it - "a positive grant of legislative power," in the words of Justice Brennan.
With or without an enforcement-by-statute clause, and with or without actual statutes, the constitutional language itself is still the highest law of the land, theoretically applicable to all public officials at all levels.