I am always amused whenever the ex-Resident or any his minions assert that because Section Three of the 14th Amendment does not specifically name the offices of President and Vice President as positions that cannot be held by those who have sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution and then engaged in insurrection against it. To my mind, the language of Section Three could not be clearer:
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. (bold mine)
But there is a reason the offices of Senator and Congressional Representative were stressed in Section Three, as many of the men who held those offices in Southern states before secession might well aspire to return to them as those states returned to the fold.
But the offices of President and Vise President are national offices, and few in Congress feared that the President of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis, who spent two years in prison after the Civil War, would receive a mandate from the nation as a whole should he try to again obtain the office.
But there was a real danger that those who had served in the Senate and House, or as Presidential Electors, could very well win those offices again when the votes they needed to do so were cast only in their rebellious states.
As drafted in the House of Representatives the 14th Amendment sought to prevent that specific set of men from obtaining office.
“As it originally passed the House, the 14th Amendment’s third section was not nearly as broad as the version now being invoked to strike Trump’s name from the ballot. It was narrowly crafted to apply only to those who willingly took part in the Civil War, and it was only meant to deprive former confederates of their right to cast ballots in federal elections. It also had an expiration date.
“Sec. 3. Until the 4th day of July, in the year 1870, all persons who voluntarily adhered to the late insurrection, giving it aid and comfort, shall be excluded from the right to vote for Representatives in Congress and for electors for President and Vice President of the United States,” the original, House-passed version read, according to congressional records of the era.“
But when the House version was sent to the Senate, Some there took a longer view and changed some of the language of the bill, omitting, for example, references to “the late insurrection” to make understood that the prohibitions therein could also be applied to future attempts at insurrection:
“This is to go into our Constitution and to stand to govern future insurrection as well as the present; and I should like to have that point definitely understood,” (Senator from West Virginia) Van Winkle said at the time.
And what are we to say when an idiot MAGA uncle or maybe even a corrupt member of SCOTUS tries to gaslight us into accepting that because the Amendment did not specifically include the offices of President an Vice-President as being subject to prohibition they are not?
We might gently remind them of the words of Maine’s Senator Lott Morrill said when presented with that specious argument.
“It’s also worth noting that there was just a single reference in the Senate debate to the fact that the president and vice president were not explicitly mentioned in Howard’s draft as “officer(s) of the United States,” the way members of Congress and state officials had been itemized in the text. Would the disqualification clause of the amendment not cover the top posts in the executive branch?
“Why did you omit to exclude them?” asked Maryland Democratic Sen. Reverdy Johnson.
Maine’s Lot Morrill jumped in to clarify.
“Let me call the Senator’s attention to the words ‘or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States,'” Morrill said, ending the discussion on that point.“
As I said, folks, the language could not be clearer.
Before ascending to SCOTUS, Neil Gorsuch wrote an opinion on the matter, supporting state legislatures’ rights to bar insureectionists from running. He did NOT specify party.
“Badges? We don’t need no stinking badges!”…the bandits in Treasure of the Sierra Madre.
Constitution? We don’t need no stinking Constitution. Trump and his fellow bandits in the Guns Over People party.
Well yes, there are the blindingly obvious, crystal clear facts and the simple, easy to understand, logical reasoning behind why the decisions were made, including, of course, the actual discussion and language used, why it was used AND WHAT IT MEANT.
It absolutely couldn’t be clearer, or more definite, or definitive.
But it’s not what republicans want, so they’ll lie, spin, obfuscate and twist things in any way possible using the tiniest, most obscure loophole to get what they want.
They always do.
It’s why we had Bush as a President, not Bob Dole, and a series of profitable (for corporations and the rich) wars in the Middle East ; and no early progress on tackling anthropogenic climate change when early progress would have made a huge difference, (again, enormously profitable in the short term for corporations and the morbidly rich).
I wonder what loophole they’ll exploit this time?
Of course, but this one doesn’t even come up to the level of a loophole. it’s just a specious argument, full stop.like so many others Trump & Co. are using these days. Bright shiny objscts, that’s it. Because there’s tons and tons of evidence against them and they have no legitimate case.
“Oh look over there!” works with the media, social and mainstream, but not in a law court. They’ll have to do better than distraction – no matter how well it’s worked in the past, as you rightly observe.
It would work in Loose Cannon’s courtroom and it might just work in the s.c.
“It’s why we had Bush as a President, not Bob Dole,”
I’m not following how this is the result of how Republicans will “lie, spin, obfuscate and twist things in any way possible using the tiniest, most obscure loophole to get what they want.”
ELIZABETH Dole ran for President in 2000 (although she withdrew from the race before any primaries or caucuses were held).
Bob Dole ran for President on several occasions, but the only “Bush” he ever ran against was George H W Bush and that was in 1988. We didn’t get into a “series of profitable . . . wars in the Middle East” after that election; the only one we got involved in was that little kerfluffle following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait (just imagine if Trump had been President then–Kuwait would now be an Iraqi province/governorate). Dole did run in 1980 but he wasn’t running against Bush specifically and his only run which resulted in getting the GOP nomination was in 1996 and there was NO Bush that ran for the GOP nomination that year.
Remember ‘The Hanging Chad’?
How completely stupid of me, Al Gore, not Bob Dole, your correction is correct.
civil or military… a President is both.
the Office of the President whereby the holder of that office
is an official and/or officer. Like a CEO, chief executive officer.
Commander in Chief. normally in the miltary a commander is an officer.
what is it about the presidency that the cons don’t associate with being an officer?
pure sophistry.
The NYT ran an opinion piece calling the 14thA archaic or some other “old” word. The comments were blistering.
The 14thA, like age and residency, are qualifications to be able to serve, not punishments.
Google Mark Graber for his excellent analysis of the 14thA.
SCOTUS will have to decide this, and I think we all.know they have problems with overturning stare decisive and the rule of law.
Ideology trumps (pardon the pun) the constitution, if they have a chance to remold the country into the Leave It To.Beaver era,,which never actually existed. Women were stuck in love less or abusive relationships with no way out other than proving infidelity. If they divorced, they were often ostracized. They had problems supporting themselves and their kids because despite what people think, alimony was the exception, not the rule. Women didn’t vacuum in pearls and high heels.And Mrs. Cleaver was,a divorced single Mom IRL.