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This feels to me like a pretty disingenuous interpretation by the court, though.
Like, the question wasn't 'Can a state choose to take someone off the ballot just because they feel like it?' That wasn't what the states said they were doing, that wasn't the legal argument being presented.
The legal argument being presented was 'the federal government has passed a law that insurrectionists may not be elected, we are following that federal law.'
That's not the states having power over the federal government, it's the states following rules set by the federal government, precisely in line with the original intent. Like, the states not electing insurrectionists is exactly what they laws says the states have to do, and the states claim they are just following that law.
Whether or not some states want to follow that law for political reasons, and are being extra-scrupulous about following the law in cases where it benefits them, seem wholly irrelevant to whether they are following the law properly or not.
It seems like any attempt to rule on the law has to answer whether or not the state is following the law as written.
To instead say 'you following a law because you want to follow it is sort of like you breaking the law to get your own way, which we don't like, so we rule against that without answering the question of what the law says' seems really blatantly politically motivated rather than legally correct.
Federal law does not say that insurrectionists may not be elected, or even that oath-breaking insurrectionists may not be elected. The 14th amendment declares that they may not be Senator, Representative, or otherwise "hold any office, civil or military".
Federal law does not have a process or procedure for disqualifying anyone from state ballots, excepting 18 USC 2383, which requires a criminal conviction. In fact, Colorado doesn't have a definition for removing unqualified first-party candidates from the ballot: hence why the underlying Colorado ruling circled so heavily around how it must be a 'wrongful act' for a ballot to be printed with Trump's name on it.
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And states don't get to decide to whom that law applies. There are lots of cases where states don't get to decide.
Are state courts not allowed to enforce any other part of the 14th amendment?
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I’ve been wondering how this interacts with the main Article II qualifications for the presidency. If Literal Hitler runs, despite being a foreign citizen without the years of residence, does Colorado still get to throw him off the ballot? Do we have to have an act of Congress stating that candidates violating those qualifications shall be removed from ballots?
That said, I don’t think you’ve got the previous legal theory quite right. It’s not “because they feel like it,” no, but neither does Colorado claim to enforce a federal law. They intended to enforce the 14th directly. Given the 14th also has Section 5, which explicitly says that Congress has to handle enforcement via legislation, that’s an error.
How much of this only applies to section 3 vs election qualifications more broadly?
I can’t tell.
This is about all we get from the Constitution, and it assigns power to the states, except when Congress feels like it. I assume most of the details are hashed out by the FEC. Where do they get their authority? No idea.
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Leftist (not saying you are) love to make this argument about the other qualifications but there is a clear distinction.
Whether you are over 35 or under 35 is measurable. It’s either true or false. Same with were you born in the US? (Hypothetically I guess borders could change). These are distinct features.
Insurrection is a word that needs defined and is qualitative in your definition.
The closest we have to say someone being 35 and being debatable is the story of a few Cuban baseball players who don’t know their age. But they do have a mathy age we just don’t know it.
It's easy to imagine sticky situations that could arise with other amendments. Say for example Biden names Obama as his VP and promises to resign as soon as he gets re-elected, thereby giving Obama a 3rd term. The 22nd amendment says you can't be elected President more than twice, but it doesn't explicitly mention the Vice-Presidency, and it doesn't explicitly say you can't be appointed President after serving two terms!
It seems to me that situation would be unclear and would lead to litigation. Granted it is very unlikely, but then an attack on the Capitol to prevent Biden from taking office also seemed unlikely until it happened.
That depends on the Twelfth Amendment's clause making those ineligible for the presidency also ineligible for the Vice Presidency as not being applicable to the 22nd Amendment's term limit, which is a possible but rather unlikely interpretation. Neither amendment has a clause calling for legislation.
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It kind of is a slur around these parts, huh?
Anyway, I agree that there’s a clear distinction. But even when the fact is obvious it still needs an enforcement mechanism. Otherwise someone will push it. “Behind every rule there is a story.”
A good rule would handle insurrectionists correctly but also handle the age or origin ones correctly. I worry that this ruling fixed one at the expense of the other.
It would be better if Congress passed a law that says “conviction under X, Y, or Z bans you from these offices; states shall remove them from the ballot for such offices.” Or even “Donald Trump is an insurrectionist for his actions on Jan 6,” unless that falls under bills of attainder. But there are a dozen reasons that will never happen.
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I think this isn’t dissimilar to this case or indeed other constitutional hypotheticals like whether a foreign-born hereditary US citizen like Ted Cruz counts as a “natural born” citizen. A state will try to remove them from the ballot, it will go up to SCOTUS, it will be determined.
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The post you're responding to shows up as "Filtered" to me, and is not visible from this page for me. I'm not sure if that's a result of a block, or if there's something else filtering him.
EDIT: visible now
Dang. Thought I was doing a good job fishing stuff out of the filter, too.
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