{"id":1445797,"date":"2023-12-26T03:30:00","date_gmt":"2023-12-26T08:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1445797"},"modified":"2023-12-26T03:30:00","modified_gmt":"2023-12-26T08:30:00","slug":"the-4-major-battlefronts-in-trumps-ongoing-ballot-dispute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/the-4-major-battlefronts-in-trumps-ongoing-ballot-dispute\/1445797\/","title":{"rendered":"The 4 Major Battlefronts In Trump\u2019s Ongoing Ballot Dispute"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 4 Major Battlefronts In Trump\u2019s Ongoing Ballot Dispute<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Sam Dorman via The Epoch Times<\/a> (emphasis ours),<\/em><\/p>\n

A slew of lawsuits are seeking to disqualify President Donald Trump from running for office in 2024, creating an increasingly unstable presidential election season.<\/strong><\/p>\n

(Illustration by The Epoch Times, Freepik, Getty Images)<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

All of these attempts rest on an argument that the “insurrection” clause of the 14th Amendment bars the former president from appearing on the ballot.<\/p>\n

The most significant decision was handed down on Dec. 21, when the Colorado Supreme Court ruled in a 4\u20133 decision that President Trump couldn\u2019t appear on the state\u2019s ballot because he had engaged in an insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021.<\/p>\n

The Colorado ruling appears to be triggering and renewing efforts to kick the former president off the ballot in other blue-leaning states, including New York, California, and Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

A lower court in Colorado had similarly ruled that President Trump engaged in an insurrection but stopped short of disqualifying him after finding that the 14th Amendment doesn’t apply to presidents.<\/p>\n

Enacted after the Civil War, the text<\/a> of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment reads:<\/strong> \u201cNo 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

This relatively untested provision is now set to come before the nation’s highest court.<\/strong><\/p>\n

“This case is surely destined for the Supreme Court to interpret the 14th Amendment and resolve whether Trump is disqualified from the presidency,” said University of Michigan law professor Barbara McQuade, who left the Trump administration among a wave of resignations at the beginning of his term.<\/p>\n

Who that section applies to, what constitutes an insurrection, and how the section is enforced have been the subject of vigorous debate.<\/p>\n

Embedded within those questions are a series of others that could make deciding or enforcing ballot disqualification cases especially complicated.<\/p>\n

Here are some of the major questions that courts and politicians may consider.<\/p>\n

1. What Is an Insurrection?<\/h2>\n

Efforts to disqualify President Trump hinge partly on whether his actions surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, riots qualify as engaging in the type of insurrection mentioned in Section 3.<\/p>\n

To answer that question, observers have drawn from historical records, federal law, and evidence surrounding Jan. 6.<\/p>\n

Supporters of President Donald Trump protest outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. (Alex Edelman\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

According to Colorado District Judge Sarah Wallace\u2019s reasoning, President Trump used language he knew would provoke violence on Jan. 6, 2021, but was vague enough to maintain plausible deniability. For her, that satisfied Section 3\u2019s requirement that an individual \u201cengaged in insurrection or rebellion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some, however, have questioned that line of reasoning given that none of the Jan. 6 defendants, nor President Trump himself, have been charged with violating federal law regarding an insurrection.<\/p>\n

South Texas College law professor Josh Blackman has said that \u201cfederal prosecutions for insurrection are extremely rare\u201d and told Click2Houston<\/a> that crimes such as “insurrection, treason, or sedition are very, very hard to prove.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c\u00a0<\/span>They require basically an intent to try to frustrate or subvert the government,<\/strong>\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

There are additional questions as to whether the 14th Amendment defines insurrection the same way federal law does, or whether federal law and the 14th Amendment require the same level of proof to establish that individuals are guilty of insurrection.<\/p>\n

Under the 14th Amendment, meeting the threshold of “insurrection” is “an extraordinarily high bar,” said Roger Severino, vice president of domestic policy at The Heritage Foundation. He also served in the Health and Human Services Department under President Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn’t see anything sufficient to justify such an incendiary charge<\/strong>,\u201d Mr. Severino told The Epoch Times.<\/p>\n

He said the reference to insurrection in the 14th Amendment came about after invasions of the north during the Civil War.<\/p>\n

During the Civil War, \u201cyou had armed invasions of the north … that’s what insurrection was referring to in the 14th Amendment,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution. (National Archives of the United States)<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Horace Cooper, senior fellow with the National Center for Public Policy Research, who formerly taught constitutional law at George Mason University, said that \u201ctheir target was specifically the Confederacy.”<\/p>\n

“Their target was not anyone who supported the French in the French\u2013Indian War. Their target was not anyone who supported the British in the British\u2013American War. Even though the language isn\u2019t written in a way to limit those, the rationale was the Confederacy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Still, some scholars say that President Trump has satisfied the 14th Amendment’s requirements for engaging in an insurrection.<\/p>\n

“Section Three covers a broad range of conduct against the authority of the constitutional order, including many instances of indirect participation or support as ‘aid or comfort,’<\/strong>” said University of Chicago law professor William Baude and University of St. Thomas law professor Michael Stokes Paulsen in a paper<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“It covers a broad range of former offices, including the presidency. And in particular, it disqualifies former President Donald Trump, and potentially many others, because of their participation in the attempted overthrow of the 2020 presidential election.”<\/p>\n

2. Is Trump an ‘Officer of the United States’?<\/h2>\n

Judge Wallace\u2019s opinion refrained from disqualifying President Trump because, she said, even if he committed an insurrection, she didn\u2019t have enough evidence to definitively say he was the type of \u201cofficer\u201d that the 14th Amendment prohibits from engaging in an insurrection.<\/p>\n

Hans von Spakovsky, a former member of the Federal Election Commission, has argued that two prior Supreme Court decisions contain language indicating that \u201cofficers\u201d of the United States don’t include presidents.<\/p>\n

More specifically, both Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board and United States v. Mouat define officers as appointees of the president and others.<\/p>\n

Washington University law professor Andrea Katz disagrees.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can find cases that have held certainly to the contrary,<\/strong>\u201d she told The Epoch Times, pointing to Lucia v. Securities and Exchange Commission.<\/p>\n

President Donald Trump at a Save America rally in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. (Lisa Fan\/The Epoch Times)<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Quoting a prior court decision, Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan said in 2018 that an officer \u201cmust occupy a \u2018continuing\u2019 position established by law, and must \u2018exercis[e] significant authority pursuant to the laws of the United States.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms. Katz said that \u201cit seems like both common understanding\u2014the text of the Supreme Court, and the legislators\u2019 understanding in drafting the 14th amendment\u2014was that the president was going to be covered by this language.\u201d<\/p>\n

In its decision, the Colorado Supreme Court argued that the amendment’s drafters “understood the president as an officer of the United States” and that the Constitution as a whole supported that conclusion.<\/p>\n

3. Can Courts Enforce Section 3?<\/h2>\n

Even if it was clear that Section 3 included President Trump\u2019s conduct, questions remain as to whether courts can remove him from the ballot.<\/strong><\/div>\n

The answer to those questions could depend on how much authority state laws grant their secretaries of state. It could also depend on how Congress describes the events of Jan. 6, 2021.<\/p>\n

Read more here…<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nMon, 12\/25\/2023 – 22:30<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bhttps:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/political\/4-major-battlefronts-trumps-ongoing-ballot-dispute<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 4 Major Battlefronts In Trump\u2019s Ongoing Ballot Dispute Authored by Sam Dorman via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), A slew of lawsuits are seeking…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1445797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1445797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1445797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1445797\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1445797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1445797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1445797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}