Section 3 of the 14th Amendment says: “No person shall ... hold any office, civil or military, under the United States ... who, having previously taken an oath ... as an officer of the United States ... 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.”

We follow the Constitution to preserve our democracy. Agreed?
An insurrection occurred on January 6, 2021. The exact definition is not so readily agreed to by many. Still, it was plain to see there was a riot, battling law enforcement, to forcefully gain entrance into the capitol and stop the peaceful transfer of power.
Trump held a rally that sure looks like it was to gather a crowd to march on the capitol. During the riot, he did nothing to call it off.
What he did, then what he failed to do, did not support the Constitution that he had taken an oath to support as president.

Whether Trump is no longer qualified to run for any office should not be a political issue. It is a constitutional issue.

 

Heard an interesting observation on the 14th Amendment. It, plus the 13th and 15th were created explicitly to control states of the former Confederacy from seating former leaders in key positions and interfering with reconstruction. Hence the specifically ruled that Congress would administer its provisions.

 

Here's one thing the treasonous conservative/America Hating/Republicans just don't get. On the side saying Trump is bared from being president are some of the best legal minds and Constitutional scholars in the country. Dr Laurence Tribe and judge Michael Luttig are the best well known but there are many others making the case. While Trump's lawyers are arguing things like Trump never swore an oath to support the Constitution.

And there is actually a way to test this. As I said before when discussions of disqualifying Trump under the 14th amendment first came up I was one of the first to think it was just some left wing and never Trumper pipe dream that would go nowhere. But I changed my mind on that when I saw the arguments being made and who was making them. And they provided an easy test by predicting how the efforts would go and how courts would react. And I have seen few instances where more predictions proved spot on.

Including this. One case that made a lot of news was the Minnesota court ruling Trump could not be barred from appearing on the ballot. But the supporters were quick to point out that was just sloppy reporting at best and false right wing propaganda at worst. Because the court said no such thing. The court said Trump could not be barred from the ballot because it was premature. The court said Trump was not the official nominee and there is no grantee he will even be on the general election ballot. And until he was the court could not make a ruling.

Which gives the supporters of baring Trump under the 14th more time to bolster their case and the Colorado Supreme court gives them a lot more ammunition.








Does Colorado decision impact Trump’s eligibility in Maine? Trump says no, challengers yes

Emma Davis, Maine Morning Star
December 23, 2023 9:17AM ET




Those challenging former President Donald Trump’s primary election eligibility in Maine see the decision out of the Colorado Supreme Court this week as validation of their argument and urge Maine to reach an identical ruling.

Trump’s counsel says the Colorado decision isn’t relevant, arguing that decision is not “final” and that Maine challenges are a separate matter since they were brought under different state laws and procedures.

In briefs filed Thursday evening, litigants weighed in on whether, and how, the Colorado decision should impact the ruling expected to be issued by Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows early next week.

The Colorado Supreme Court ordered Trump to be barred from the state’s 2024 presidential ballot on Dec. 19, under a Civil War-era insurrection clause in the 14th Amendment that two of the three challenges to Trump’s eligibility in Maine have also cited.

Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution prohibits anyone who took an oath to uphold the Constitution and then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” from holding office in the U.S. The challengers argue Trump cannot hold office because he engaged in insurrection when he incited people to attack the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Proceedings for Maine’s hearing, which began Dec. 15, had essentially wrapped by the 19th, when the challengers and Trump’s counsel had submitted their closing arguments as briefs. After Colorado’s decision, however, Bellows invited the parties to submit supplemental briefs addressing the impact, if any, the Colorado decision has on the arguments they’ve presented.

The burden of proof falls on the challengers, who must provide “sufficient evidence” in order to invalidate the petition. The other challenge in Maine argues Trump is ineligible under the 22nd Amendment, which outlines term limits, because the former president has maintained that he won the 2020 election.

Several other states have also seen challenges to Trump’s eligibility, mainly citing the 14th Amendment argument, but Colorado is the first to rule in favor of challengers. The ruling in Colorado is expected to be appealed to the nation’s highest court.

Colorado’s relevancy in Maine, as argued by both sides
Counsel for the former Maine elected officials who submitted one of the 14th Amendment challenges filed a brief Thursday night outlining why they believe Colorado’s decision should impact what happens in Maine. This challenge came from former Portland mayor Ethan Strimling, a Democrat, and former Republican state Sens. Kimberley Rosen and Thomas Saviello.

Counsel for Trump — Portland attorney Benjamin Hartwell and outside representation Scott Gessler and Gary Lawkowski — also filed a brief Thursday, arguing the opposite.

Both the challengers and Trump’s counsel focused largely on the issue of collateral estoppel in their briefs.

Sec. of State Bellows hears arguments for and against challenges to Trump’s ballot eligibility


Collateral estoppel, or issue preclusion, prevents the relitigation of factual issues already decided in an earlier proceeding.

The challengers argue the U.S. Constitution requires Maine to apply collateral estoppel to the judgements of other state courts and therefore requires Bellows to follow the Colorado courts’ factual determinations.

Trump’s counsel argues collateral estoppel does not apply, because the challengers in Colorado and Maine are different, as are the state laws and procedures under which the challengers sought relief.

The fairness and finality of the Colorado decision also factored into the argument from Trump’s counsel. His counsel argues that Colorado’s ruling shouldn’t be considered a “final judgment” because it included a stay of the court’s order until Jan. 4, or until the outcome of a widely anticipated appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court is decided.

The ruling from Colorado read, “If review is sought in the Supreme Court before the stay expires on Jan. 4, 2024, then the stay shall remain in place, and the Secretary will continue to be required to include President Trump’s name on the 2024 presidential primary ballot, until the receipt of any order or mandate from the Supreme Court.”

Additionally, Trump’s counsel argues in their brief that Trump did not have a full and fair opportunity to litigate the facts in the Colorado case, so collateral estoppel does not apply. Quoting dissent from the majority opinion in Colorado, they wrote, “the truncated procedures and limited due process provided by [Colorado law] are wholly insufficient to address the constitutional issues currently at play.”

Separately, counsel for Trump outlined an argument as to why the Colorado case should have no bearing in Maine that has nothing to do with the Colorado case at all.

Trump’s counsel wrote in their brief that Maine law does not allow the Secretary of State to remove Trump from the ballot. Instead, they argue, only the three qualifications for the office of the presidency matter — a point his counsel also emphasized during the Dec. 15 hearing when they asked the challengers whether they believed Trump met those qualifications of age, residency and natural born citizenship.

Aside from the collateral estoppel arguments from the challengers, their brief also argued that the Colorado decision is the “best persuasive authority” on the matter. Because the challengers used much of the same evidence as the Colorado case, including the same expert witness, Bellows should reach an “identical or substantially similar” conclusion, the challengers wrote.

These supplemental briefs from both sides of the litigation are the last filings expected before Bellows will issue her ruling on Trump’s eligibility for Maine’s presidential primary election, scheduled for March 5, or “Super Tuesday.”

Maine Morning Star is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Maine Morning Star maintains editorial independence.



https://www.rawstory.com/trump-maine-ballot/

 

@stumbler
No what you "heard" is just obviously stupid and ignorant total bullshit.

Here's an example. This is the last elected official removed from office and barred from holding any elected office in the future under the 14th amendment.

 

JONATHAN TURLEY

COLUMNS, CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, POLITICS, SUPREME COURT December 21, 2023
The Call of History: It is Time for the Court to Speak as One in Overturning the Colorado Opinion


Below is my column in the New York Post on the next step in the effort to disqualify former president Donald Trump in the 2024 election. I believe that the Colorado opinion will be set aside, but it is not finality but clarity that we need from the United States Supreme Court.

Here is the column:


In his book Profiles of Courage, John F. Kennedy discussed figures who answered the call of history and how such defining moments are “an opportunity that sooner or later is presented to us all.” That moment will now be presented to nine justices of the United States Supreme Court after a divided decision of the Colorado Supreme Court to disqualify Donald Trump in the 2024 election.

The test for the U.S. Supreme Court is not just what they should do, but how they should do it. As an institution, the Court is often called upon to seize such moments to bring unity and clarity on our core values. That is why this insidious opinion must not only be unequivocally but unanimously overturned.

The Colorado decision to bar Donald Trump from the ballot will be overturned because it is wrong on the history and the language of the 14th Amendment.

Dead wrong.

The question is whether the US Supreme Court will speak with one voice, including the three liberal justices.

As with the three Democratic state justices who refused to sign off on the Colorado opinion, these federal justices can now bring a moment of unity not just for the court but the country in rejecting this shockingly anti-democratic theory.

For years, the disqualification theory has been treated like some abstract parlor game for law professors.

While Democrats called for the disqualification of 120 House members, it was treated as a fringe theory.

It has now lost its charm as a legal brain teaser.

As I have previously written, the disqualification of Trump is based on the use of a long-dormant provision in Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.

After the Civil War, House members were outraged to see Alexander Stephens, the Confederate vice president, seeking to take the oath with an array of other former Confederate senators and military officers.

They had all previously taken the same oath and then violated it to join a secession movement that claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans.

That was a true rebellion.

January 6, 2021, was a riot.

That does not excuse those who committed crimes that day — but it was not an insurrection.

The majority on the Colorado Supreme Court adopted sweeping interpretations of every element of the decision to find that Trump not only incited an insurrection, but can be disqualified under this provision.

It does not matter that Trump has never been charged with even incitement or that he called for his supporters to go to the Capitol to protest “peacefully.”

In finding that Trump led an actual insurrection, the four justices used speeches going back to 2016 to show an effort to rebel before Trump was ever president.

There are ample grounds to summarily toss this opinion to the side.

However, that would not answer the call of this historic moment.

What these four justices did was a direct assault on our democratic process in seeking to bar the most popular candidate in the upcoming election.

Whatever the view of Trump, this is a decision that should rest with the voters.

No only are these four justices seeking to bar the votes of millions of voters (even barring the counting of write-in votes), but they are doing so in the name of democracy.

It is the ballot cleansing that is usually associated with authoritarian countries like Iran, where voters are protected from “unworthy” candidates.

Justice Robert Jackson once observed that he and his colleagues “are not final because we are infallible, we are infallible because we are final.”

A decision on Colorado could put this theory to rest by the sheer finality of the appeal.

However, it is not the finality that is needed at this moment. We need clarity. Clarity of purpose and principle.

The Supreme Court plays a unique role in our system at times like these.

It must at times defy us in rejecting racism as cases such as Brown v. Board of Education.

At other times, it has protected in rejecting government overreach as in cases such as Katz v. United States, demanding warrants to overcome the reasonable expectation of privacy.

This is a time where it can unify us.

The court holds the ultimate “bully pulpit” that can educate citizens on what defines us as a people.

Most people understand intuitively that what these four justices did in Colorado was wrong.

However, the court can speak as one — conservatives and liberals — in reaffirming the core values discarded by these state justices.

In that sense, it may be the greatest test of Chief Justice John Roberts.

Roberts once observed that “the most successful chief justices help their colleagues speak with one voice.”

Past chief justices from John Marshall to Earl Warren struggled to secure unanimous votes on fundamental cases to reaffirm such defining values.

The court could help unify this country in a way that may be unparalleled in its history.

It can show that justices who hold vastly different ideological views can be unified on core principles.

It can remind us that, as citizens, the Constitution is ultimately not a covenant with the government but with each other.

It is a leap of faith that, as a free people, we can decide our shared destiny and protect our shared identity.

The moment has come for nine justices to speak in one voice.

An American voice that transcends the personalities and divisions of our time.

It is a voice that speaks not to what divides us but what defines us as a people.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University, where he teaches a course on the Constitution and the Supreme Court.

 

Thank you for illustrating exactly what I was saying. On the side making the case for disqualifying Trump from holding office under Section 3 of the 14th amendment we have scholars like Dr Lawrence Tribe and judge Michael Luttig. And on the other side people like Jonathan Turley. So its like shooting fish in a barrel.





“Disgrace to my profession”: Legal experts blast Prof. Jonathan Turley for excusing away Trump call
Law professor labeled "Mike Lindell with tenure" after claiming Raffensperger call was merely seeking a "recount"
https://www.salon.com/2023/08/25/di...-prof-jonathan-turley-for-excusing-away-call/



What Fox's Jonathan Turley gets wrong about Trump's legal issues
As Trump’s legal troubles escalate, Fox’s Jonathan Turley has taken a lead role in defending the former president. Many of Turley’s claims don’t hold up to basic scrutiny.
https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/what-foxs-jonathan-turley-gets-wrong-about-trumps-legal-issues



What Happened to Jonathan Turley, Really?
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/11/what-happened-to-jonathan-turley-really.html



The Republicans’ Star Impeachment Scholar Is a Shameless Hack
Jonathan Turley’s testimony was so inconsistent, it contradicted his own previous statements on impeachment.
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/turley-impeachment-hypocrisy/

 

It cracks me up that the only sites he uses are so left that they're always on the wrong side of the foul line making them more foul than the smell of a rotting corpse.....
It certainly says tons about a so-called newspaper editor..... It's probably why so many "newspapers" are no longer in business.....

 

Jonathan Turley is an American attorney, legal scholar, writer, commentator, and legal analyst in broadcast and print journalism. A professor at George Washington University Law School, he has testified in United States congressional proceedings about constitutional and statutory issues. He has also testified in multiple impeachment hearings and removal trials in Congress, including the impeachment of President Bill Clinton and both the first and second impeachments of President Donald Trump. Turley is a First Amendment advocate and writes frequently on free speech restrictions in the private and public sectors. Turley is a Fox News contributor. He is the author of The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in the Age of Rage.
Hey genius...he's smarter than ANY of the idiots you quoted!

 

Hopefully Trump will be convicted for voter fraud and for inciting an insurrection. Let the justice system do its job.

 

God I get a kick out of these fatuous camp-follower 'Know-Nothings.'

It's virtually impossible to be found guilty of a crime you have never been charged with (except, apparently, but the Colorado State Supreme Court).

Keep the laughs coming, geniuses!

 

President Donald Trump has been charged in four criminal cases. The results in those indictments will determine Trump political fate in 2024.

 

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis faces backlash for cringy ‘Feliz Navidad’ rendition as migrant crisis surges

I wonder who paid for this ridiculous commercial...

https://nypost.com/2023/12/26/news/...rendition-as-migrant-crisis-surges-in-denver/

 

Michigan Supreme Court keeps Trump on the ballot — but leaves opening for a new challenge
Tatyana Tandanpolie
Wed, December 27, 2023 at 10:18 AM MST·6 min read
93



Donald Trump; Voting Booth Photo illustration by Salon/Getty Images

• 
  

The Michigan Supreme Court declined on Wednesday to hear a case arguing that former President Donald Trump should be booted from the state's primary ballot, allowing the GOP frontrunner to remain a candidate, the Detroit Free Press reports.

The Wednesday order aligns with lower court rulings in the state, but departs from a recent ruling removing Trump from the ballot by the Colorado Supreme Court.

The question of whether Trump is an eligible candidate for the presidency hinges on whether his conduct related to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack should be considered engaging in insurrection. Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits anyone who has taken an oath to uphold the Constitution to hold office if they have "engaged in insurrection or rebellion" against the nation. Another key concern in the slate of court cases is whether barring a candidate over such a matter would be within state powers or only in the power of Congress.


In the order, Michigan's highest state court indicated it agrees with the latter option, declaring that it is "not persuaded that the present questions should be reviewed by this court."

It refused to reconsider a mid-December decision by a three-judge panel of a state Court of Appeals, which affirmed a lower court ruling that neither the courts nor Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson can keep Trump from being a candidate in Michigan's Feb. 27 Republican primary.

Mark Brewer, the lawyer for Michigan voters seeking to have Trump removed from the ballot and a former Michigan Democratic Party chairman, called the decision "very disappointing but extremely narrow." If Trump becomes the Republican nominee, he added, his clients will again challenge his eligibility for the November ballot.

In a statement, Free Speech For People, a nonpartisan government-ethics organization and one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, echoed the attorney's assertion, declaring that the decision does not "preclude FSFP from raising the same claims in Michigan before the general election, if Trump’s candidacy proceeds to that point."

It also doesn't affect the organization's pending challenge in Oregon, challenges it intends to bring in other states, or the status of the Colorado decision, the organization added.

“The ruling conflicts with longstanding US Supreme Court precedent that makes clear that when political parties use the election machinery of the state to select, via the primary process, their candidates for the general election, they must comply with all constitutional requirements in that process," FSFP Legal Director Ron Fein said in the statement. "However, the Michigan Supreme Court did not rule out that the question of Donald Trump’s disqualification for engaging in insurrection against the U.S. Constitution may be resolved at a later stage."

Justice Elizabeth Welch, a Democratic appointee, dissented, pointing to the Colorado ruling among other matters.

She agreed with the Michigan Court of Appeals' argument that under the wording of state law, the secretary of state does not possess the authority to exclude from the primary ballot a prominent candidate like Trump, whose name has been promoted by a political party, regardless of whether the U.S. Constitution would deem him ineligible. But, "political parties might have an obligation to ensure that proposed presidential primary candidates are eligible," Welch wrote.

"Considering the importance of the legal questions at issue and the speed with which the appellants and the judiciary have moved, I believe it is important for this court to issue a decision on the merits," she added.

Michigan's lower courts, along with the courts of other states, have largely found that whether Trump is disqualified under Section 3 is a decision best left for Congress — at least in terms of a primary election — and not the state's courts or election officials.

But the Colorado Supreme Court's split decision, now on hold pending a decision on whether the U.S. Supreme Court will take up the matter, states that nothing in the 14th Amendment, which was written in response to the Civil War, requires Congress rather than a state to make that determination. It only holds that the U.S. House and Senate can overturn any disqualification if they choose to, the decision said.

The Colorado opinion also noted that its state law describes a duty to "exclude constitutionally disqualified candidates" in a process run through its courts ahead of any election including a primary. Michigan law, however, does not include any similar provision.



"The lower court decision (and this refusal by the Michigan Supreme Court to take up the issue) is not about the merits of the underlying 14th Amendment question but more so the mechanisms of state law in placing a person's name on the primary ballot," Georgia State law professor Anthony Michael Kreis clarified on X, formerly Twitter.

While arguing in her dissent that the challengers should be able to retry their challenge in the event Trump wins the nomination, Kreis notes, Welch also highlights that Colorado law and Michigan law are "not analogous."


"The Co. Supreme Court and the Mich. Supreme Court were presented with challenges to Trump's eligibility under the 14th Amendment but have different state law vehicles for placing names on the ballot," Kreis explained. "The MI Court ruling doesn't touch the merits of Trump's eligibility as a result."


Though the Michigan Supreme Court didn't affirm that the challengers could renew their lawsuit for the general election, it did "allow the lower court ruling permitting a second bite at the apple to stand," Kreis added. "Justice Welch would have affirmed that part expressly."



https://www.yahoo.com/news/michigan-supreme-court-keeps-trump-171825669.html

 

Trump has not been criminally convicted of insurrection or rebellion.

 

I have often wondered how it is possible for treasonous conservative/America Hating/Republicans to be able to type but apparently can't read?


Fourteenth 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."

 

If a state does not allow a fair election then no votes should be used towards an election! Specially a presidential election!

Axios Homepage

Updated 9 hours ago -
Politics & Policy
Colorado GOP urges U.S. Supreme Court to keep Trump on 2024 ballot
headshot
Rebecca Falconer

The U.S. Supreme Court was urged to overturn Colorado's landmark ruling removing former President Trump from the state's 2024 ballot in a Colorado Republican Party petition on Wednesday.

Why it matters: The petition indefinitely extends the Colorado Supreme Court's stay to its order that was due to expire on Jan. 4 ahead of a U.S. Supreme Court decision in the case — meaning Trump's name can for now still appear on the ballot.

Driving the news: "The Republican Party has been irreparably harmed" by the Colorado Supreme Court's majority decision finding that the 14th Amendment's insurrection clause applies to Trump in relation to his actions surrounding the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, argues the petition, obtained by the New York Times.

"The state has interfered in the primary election by unreasonably restricting the Party's ability to select its candidates," it added.
"As a natural and inevitable result, the state has interfered with the Party's ability to place on the general election ballot the candidate of its choice. And it has done so based on a subjective claim of insurrection the state lacks any constitutional authority to make."
What we're watching: Attorneys for Trump are expected to file their own appeal in the coming days. Representatives for Trump did not immediately respond to Axios' request for comment.

Of note: The Colorado Republican Party argues in its petition that unless the Colorado Supreme Court's decision is overturned, "any voter will have the power to sue to disqualify any political candidate," in the state or in any other jurisdiction.

"This will not only distort the 2024 presidential election but will also mire courts henceforth in political controversies over nebulous accusations of insurrection," the petition added.

"Indeed, the catastrophic effects of the Colorado Supreme Court's decision are already foreshadowed in pending and recently decided cases involving attempts to deny President Trump access to the 2024 ballot."
Zoom out: At least 35 cases have been filed across the U.S. seeking to keep Trump off the ballot that cite the 14th Amendment.

However, the Colorado Supreme Court's ruling by a 4-to-3 vote is the only one so far to find the largely untested Civil War-era amendment does apply to Trump.