Does the 14th amendment disqualify Trump from office?

This is a funny asterisk or footnote, but it's also a bigger issue. Did Trump, like the civil war secessionists, commit an insurrection against the US government? We could actually have an extended argument over whether his actions leading up to and on Jan. 6 constituted an insurrection. In my view, it was an attempt at a coup with various laws broken. It's interesting that we haven't had to consider this question with other candidates. 

So here it is, 14th amendment Section 3: 

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 have been all kinds of arguments that this doesn't apply to the presidency. Also that isn't not enforceable, or only enforceable by the Supreme Court. 

These are valid questions and there aren't loads of good answers because there isn't much case law on this. We really haven't had a lot of insurrections where we had to worry about barring the participants from office. 

One thing that's at issue is how this provision is enforced since no enforcement mechanism is listed. I tried to find out about the enforcement and found very little. The most detailed is about a potential senator from NC named Zebulon Vance. He had been a representative, then joined the secessionists and was selected as senator after the war. He was barred per the 14th amendment and didn't try to serve, and eventually NC found a different candidate who passed per the 14th amendment. 

It appears that officials had to present credentials, which could be rejected. After the Civil War, Congress refused to seat many senators and representatives from southern states. Pres. Johnson complained about this, and records show rejection of a GA senator.

Now the Colorado Supreme Court has blocked Trump from the primary there on the grounds of the 14th amendment Section 3. So this is strange, unprecedented for a candidate for president, but it is somewhat in keeping with a strict constructionist reading of the amendment. 

Per the amendment, it applies to anyone who 1) "having taken an oath ... to support the Constitution of the United States, then 2) "engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same." For those, "No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, ... or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States..." 

There's no requirement of a trial to determine it, so it's hard to say that Colorado isn't within its rights to bar him. Well, such interesting times we live in. 

Image: Redbubble

Update on voter fraud

Prior to the November 2014 election, I collected several articles on voter fraud, a topic I've discussed before. The usual spiel on voter fraud is 1) it's committed by the Democrats regularly (and is the only reason they win, according to some), 2) let's laugh at the zany claims made by those zany conservative hicks.

I don't want to do a piece that falls into either of these categories, but what's left? How about a sober evaluation of the claims? Here's what I found:

Local investigation in Florida of non-citizens voting. This seems like a level-headed initial investigation into real (not imagined) fraudulent voting by non-citizens. However, it leaves unanswered how these non-citizens ended up on the voter roles. Were they registered by default or by honest error when they obtained or renewed a driver's license? Were they registered in a voter drive by unscrupulous operators? Is the mistake and/or fraud different in many of the cases? We don't have those answers, and the non-citizens aren't shining much light on how this happened. The reporters aren't doing a good job either because they cite 100 possible cases, but not how wide an area they came from? Is it just one county, all of Florida, or what? Perhaps this isn't so much a real investigation as a bait for a particular segment of the audience.

Non-citizens voting in Virginia. This is skirmish in the voter fraud war. The Electoral Board did some research using juror records, and found approx. 300 possible non-citizens who were on the voter roles. They forwarded the information to the local prosecutor, but got no response.

Here are some others:

• Iowa cases, 200 not 3.5K.
• Non-citizens voting far fewer than the margin of victory in Ohio.
• No non-citizens voting in Boulder. Another similar case of GOPers trying to root out voter fraud. The local DA's response: "We don't need state officials sending us on wild goose chases for political reasons."
• Isolated fraud incident in Colorado.

Do these cases change anything? No. The typical charges of 'massive voter fraud' originate with conservative talk radio demagogues, and these guys don't care about truth, evidence, or investigations. So we'll continue to hear these claims of voter fraud, and they'll be unchanged by the reality of minimal numbers. The only reason I bother to note this information is in preparation to refute the argument. Not that I'll convince any true believers, but sometimes I just want to get some truth out there.

Voter fraud! (assumed)

Image: norcalblogs.com

Update 3/4/17. Here's a report from Ohio on one type of voter fraud--non-citizen voting. In 2017, that would be a staggering 82 of them. I guess the million of non-citizens voting for Clinton came from other states.