A Deeply Fractured US

[Kirkhill]

I didn't read the details yet, but if the states are the ones that have their weird standalone responsibilities for running elections, but don't have the power to disqualify someone for a federal ballot based on the Constitution, who actually does?

Congress

And if it comes down to the last vote

The Speaker of the House
The Vice President
Mike Pence or Kamala Harris

 

[QV]

Is Bidenomics Working? Rhetoric vs. Reality

The President brags a lot about the economy, so we decided to look at what the President has been saying, compare that to the facts on the ground, and let you decide for yourself.

www.bidenomics.com

"Americans for Prosperity launches 8-figure campaign featuring Bidenomics.com, which is says is 'the Website Joe Biden Doesn't Want You to See'"​

 

[Navy_Pete]

Congress

And if it comes down to the last vote

The Speaker of the House
The Vice President
Mike Pence or Kamala Harris

So the fact that he was impeached by Congress for Jan 6th doesn't count?

I get he didn't get enough votes in the Senate for a conviction (even with a majority voting him guilty), but if Congress impeaches him, and it's left up to the states to actually implement on the ballots, but they don't have the authority to ban someone, I don't see how they can actually ban anyone from running ever.

 

[QV]

Perhaps congress just needs to vote to ban him?

In other news... more evidence Haley shouldn't be the GOP nominee:

https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/03/politics/nikki-haley-dc-primary/index.html

 

[Kirkhill]

So the fact that he was impeached by Congress for Jan 6th doesn't count?

I get he didn't get enough votes in the Senate for a conviction (even with a majority voting him guilty), but if Congress impeaches him, and it's left up to the states to actually implement on the ballots, but they don't have the authority to ban someone, I don't see how they can actually ban anyone from running ever.

Consider if he had been arrested, impeached by the House, and then tried by jury of his peers, the Senate, and one juror
had found sufficient doubt to prevent the jury coming to a verdict.

Does he not get to walk?

The process was followed.

 

[Remius]

I didn't read the details yet, but if the states are the ones that have their weird standalone responsibilities for running elections, but don't have the power to disqualify someone for a federal ballot based on the Constitution, who actually does?

I think they can still disqualify someone but just not the way they did in these cases.

 

[Navy_Pete]

Consider if he had been arrested, impeached by the House, and then tried by jury of his peers, the Senate, and one juror
had found sufficient doubt to prevent the jury coming to a verdict.

Does he not get to walk?

The process was followed.

I don't think the constitutional processes in the US even considered the hyper-partisanship evolution of the US, and seemed to have expected at least some 'good of the country' type bipartisanship review of these kinds of things.

There are people on both parties that are incapable of that, but there are a lot more on the Republican side who are raging lunatics that don't even follow the basics of what the party goes for, and why folks like Cheney were driven out. When even bootlickers like McConnell are taken aback and have had enough it's gotten pretty extreme.

It's funny how many of them ride the Jesus train as well, must have missed the 'Fuck you, I've got mine' part of the beatitudes in the Gospel.

 

[Kirkhill]

I don't think the constitutional processes in the US even considered the hyper-partisanship evolution of the US, and seemed to have expected at least some 'good of the country' type bipartisanship review of these kinds of things.

There are people on both parties that are incapable of that, but there are a lot more on the Republican side who are raging lunatics that don't even follow the basics of what the party goes for, and why folks like Cheney were driven out. When even bootlickers like McConnell are taken aback and have had enough it's gotten pretty extreme.

It's funny how many of them ride the Jesus train as well, must have missed the 'Fuck you, I've got mine' part of the beatitudes in the Gospel.

Actually, from my understanding, the people that wrote the US constitution were well aware of Parties and Factions and wrote the document accordingly. Hamilton, Jefferson and the Adamses seem to have all been quite engaged in the debate.

...

I kind of think everything is about Process these days.

Trump followed the Process and won election. Some folks didn't like the result.
Trump was impeached and tried according to Process. Some folks didn't like the result.

Now the effort has moved outside of remit of Congress and Civil Process and Criminal Process is being tried. Those are open for debate but I am going to guess that some folks won't like the result. No matter which way the results fall.

I am going to further guess that the Supreme Court will find that the President (insert the name of the office holder here) cannot be held liable for their actions while in office once they are out of office. The whole American system is built on containing authority.

While the President is in office, POTUS, the Chief Executive Officer, is held to account by the Legislature and the Courts. All of the President's actions are subject to continuous scrutiny. If the Legislature disagrees with the actions they can deprive the President of authority on a specific action by withdrawing consent on bills. It can promote alternative actions. It can deny funding for the actions. It can refer the matter to the Courts for a ruling on legality. It can impeach the President and dismiss him or her. It can find the President mentally incompetent.

It does not lack tools to hold the President to account. If all those efforts are tried, and fail, then it could be fairly argued that the Legislature and the Courts were complicit in the actions of the Executive.

....

More broadly the whole DEI business is a reflection of the same debate. People don't like the outcomes that result from following the existing, legal, processes. They want their preferred outcome. And are willing to adjust the Process, by any means, to achieve their preferred result.

....

Sometimes, a good citizen, has to be able to live by the Process, accept the result, extend a hand and say "Well played. See you next week."

 

[Kirkhill]

I think they can still disqualify someone but just not the way they did in these cases.

I think the disqualification on offer is the ability to not nominate the candidate in the first place. Every state has its primaries and its electors.

 

[brihard]

There’s a federal criminal offense for engaging in rebellion or insurrection, 18 USC 2383. Part of the sentence for that is disqualification from eligibility for any office under the United States. I haven’t read the SCOTUS decision and don’t know when I’ll have time to, but I suspect they’ll have held that 2383’s disqualification provision in the sentence means that Congress reserved the article 14 disqualification for those circumstances. If so, that’s a reasonable call to make. But with a unanimous decision of all nine justices, I’m certain it’s reasonable regardless.

 

[Kirkhill]

There’s a federal criminal offense for engaging in rebellion or insurrection, 18 USC 2383. Part of the sentence for that is disqualification from eligibility for any office under the United States. I haven’t read the SCOTUS decision and don’t know when I’ll have time to, but I suspect they’ll have held that 2383’s disqualification provision in the sentence means that Congress reserved the article 14 disqualification for those circumstances. If so, that’s a reasonable call to make. But with a unanimous decision of all nine justices, I’m certain it’s reasonable regardless.

Now, if only someone had been arrested for insurrection, tried and convicted.

Then they could be disqualified. By Congress.

States cannot ban Donald Trump from running for president and he will appear on the ballot in Tuesday’s Colorado primary, America’s highest court has ruled.

The Supreme Court ruling is a victory for the former president, who is expected to sew up the Republican nomination during the Super Tuesday contest.

In an opinion published on Monday, the court reversed the earlier Colorado ruling “because the Constitution makes Congress, rather than the states, responsible for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates”.

Section 3 is a provision of the 14th Amendment adopted after the Civil War in 1868 which is meant to keep former officeholders who “engaged in insurrection” from ever regaining power.

The Supreme Court concluded that states can “disqualify persons from holding or attempting to hold state office”.

But it found that “states have no power under the Constitution to enforce Section 3 with respect to federal offices, especially the presidency”.

....

The Supreme Court ruled that it would be “incongruous” to read the Amendment as giving individual states the power to disqualify candidates for federal office.

The opinion added that it would be “simply implausible” that states would be granted “freer rein than Congress” to decide how this section of the Constitution should be applied.

The nine justices also warned that granting the ruling could see a candidate declared ineligible in some states and not others, potentially disenfranchising millions of voters.

“The disruption would be all the more acute – and could nullify the votes of millions and change the election result – if Section 3 enforcement were attempted after the nation has voted,” the ruling reads.

“Nothing in the Constitution requires that we endure such chaos – arriving at any time or different times, up to and perhaps beyond the inauguration.”

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson said it would “defy logic” to give the states “new powers to determine who may hold the presidency”.

....

During the hearing, Chief Justice John Robert, a Republican, said that if the Colorado decision was upheld other states would proceed with disqualification proceedings of their own for either Democratic or Republican candidates

He added: “And it will come down to just a handful of states that are going to decide the presidential election. That’s a pretty daunting consequence.”

Donald Trump cleared to run for president on eve of Super Tuesday

Supreme Court unanimously bans states from excluding former president from ballot over allegations he incited insurrection

www.telegraph.co.uk

 

[Brad Sallows]

I didn't read the details yet, but if the states are the ones that have their weird standalone responsibilities for running elections, but don't have the power to disqualify someone for a federal ballot based on the Constitution, who actually does?

If states are to DQ someone based on a provision of the Constitution, it has to be a part of the Constitution that grants states the power to do so. The USSC just said that the power for the provision in question rests with Congress.

 

[Brad Sallows]

So the fact that he was impeached by Congress for Jan 6th doesn't count?

I get he didn't get enough votes in the Senate for a conviction (even with a majority voting him guilty), but if Congress impeaches him, and it's left up to the states to actually implement on the ballots, but they don't have the authority to ban someone, I don't see how they can actually ban anyone from running ever.

Conviction is the part that matters. Impeachment is just laying charges.

Congress can bar presidents from taking office simply by refusing to count their EVs.

 

[QV]

Congress can bar presidents from taking office simply by refusing to count their EVs.

That would be something to watch unfold. And I wouldn't put it past happening if Trump found himself in a position to become POTUS again.

I can only guess the fallout of that would be extreme.

 

[Navy_Pete]

If states are to DQ someone based on a provision of the Constitution, it has to be a part of the Constitution that grants states the power to do so. The USSC just said that the power for the provision in question rests with Congress.

I get that, but I don't see any actual process for Congress to actually bar someone from running that gives direction to the states to actually do that (as it's not a federal jurisdiciton to tell them how to run the state ballots).

If Congress refuses to count states electoral colleges that undermines the entire electoral process, where if they would simply act like grownups and update the amendment for a clear process on the 'how' it wouldn't need to go to the SCC because people are trying to guess how to enforce the amendment.

The US election system is frankly a mess of overlapping jurisdictions with a ton of gaps and contradictions.

 

[brihard]

I get that, but I don't see any actual process for Congress to actually bar someone from running that gives direction to the states to actually do that (as it's not a federal jurisdiciton to tell them how to run the state ballots).

Again, they already did when they enacted 18 US 2383, the criminal offence for insurrection or rebellion.

If Congress refuses to count states electoral colleges that undermines the entire electoral process, where if they would simply act like grownups and update the amendment for a clear process on the 'how' it wouldn't need to go to the SCC because people are trying to guess how to enforce the amendment.

The US election system is frankly a mess of overlapping jurisdictions with a ton of gaps and contradictions.

A refusal to count the electoral college votes would be a functional collapse of America’s electoral system and democracy. The most significant ongoing prosecutions around the last election are against those who essentially tried and plotted to usurp the electoral vote process by substituting fraudulent votes.

Once the lawful electoral college votes, representing the will of the electorate, are forwarded by the states, there’s no legitimate course of action for Congress and the Vice President but to count them. This was made very, very clear in the wake of the 2020 election.

 

[Navy_Pete]

Again, they already did when they enacted 18 US 2383, the criminal offence for insurrection or rebellion.

Thanks, that's the bit I was missing, I don't think I actually read that original text itself before which actually bars people from running for office (which I'm sure some lawyer would quibble over the definition and if it applied to POTUS and others).

A refusal to count the electoral college votes would be a functional collapse of America’s electoral system and democracy. The most significant ongoing prosecutions around the last election are against those who essentially tried and plotted to usurp the electoral vote process by substituting fraudulent votes.

Once the lawful electoral college votes, representing the will of the electorate, are forwarded by the states, there’s no legitimate course of action for Congress and the Vice President but to count them. This was made very, very clear in the wake of the 2020 election.

The 2nd bit was my reply to @Brad Sallows point above, and I agree that once the states send it on they count it. I guess what I was missing was without the charge how any of that actually works or if this created some catch 22.

 

[brihard]

Thanks, that's the bit I was missing, I don't think I actually read that original text itself before which actually bars people from running for office (which I'm sure some lawyer would quibble over the definition and if it applied to POTUS and others).



The 2nd bit was my reply to @Brad Sallows point above, and I agree that once the states send it on they count it. I guess what I was missing was without the charge how any of that actually works or if this created some catch 22.

Certainly any part of this could be / would be argued by part of the skin in the game, but it’s generally recognized that courts don’t act in such a way as to create absurdities or to defeat the way law is generally supposed to work.

A Congress that acted unilaterally to block the will of the electorate, in a manner not already prescribed by law, would lose legitimacy and would trigger an existential democratic crisis.

 

[quadrapiper]

Again, they already did when they enacted 18 US 2383, the criminal offence for insurrection or rebellion.

A refusal to count the electoral college votes would be a functional collapse of America’s electoral system and democracy. The most significant ongoing prosecutions around the last election are against those who essentially tried and plotted to usurp the electoral vote process by substituting fraudulent votes.

Once the lawful electoral college votes, representing the will of the electorate, are forwarded by the states, there’s no legitimate course of action for Congress and the Vice President but to count them. This was made very, very clear in the wake of the 2020 election.

A refusal to count could, in the US system-as-written, be akin to a vote of non-confidence, and the "confidence of the House" test to pick a PM post election. In the US system as it has evolved, it's more or less a ceremonial, or at best confirmatory, exercise.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Trump has been following the process ever since the lawfare indictments started. His lawyer have done a good job stalling things. That's what lawyers do.

Keeping him off the ballot was just more of the same. Desperate attempt by desperate people.

In this case, SCOTUS found for Trump. By unanimous decision. This particular attempt at lawfare is finished. The door is closed.

Trump won. Some people will continue to claim it was fixed. Some will continue to question the law and SCOTUS. Some people will continue to shout at the sky and gnash their teeth, but Trump won this one. They're just going to have to live with it, whether they like it or not.

But they can use their outrage, on this decision, as a fuse for their meltdown if SCOTUS rules he had immunity.