Practical Civics Class: Tell your Secretary of State to keep Trump off the CA ballot!

OK, class!: Why is Section 3 of the 14th Amendment also know as the “Disqualification Clause?

Action #1 – Tell your Secretary of State to cross Trump off the ballot for cause.

Minimal call or email your Secretary of State: I’m [calling/writing] from [zip code] to tell Secretary of State [ CA=Shirley N. Weber] to follow the mandate of Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and bar all insurrectionists, including Donald J. Trump, from any future ballot.

You can add any of these links or reference their material:

Letter to Sec. of State Weber: https://tinyurl.com/No-ballot-for-Trump
Pre-written declaration for secretaries of state to use: Declaration
Myths versus facts on upholding Sec. 3: Upholding Section 3

Contacts

CA – Secretary of State Shirley N. Weber: email, (916) 657-2166
Other states: here

Deeper Dive

Trump schooled us in what was just a traditional “norm” by breaking them – like refusing to release his taxes, profiting from his business while in office and demanding that the Justice Department investigate his political enemies. The Washington Post even started a podcast called “Can He Do That?” where the answer was often “yes.” Trump also broke the norm that presidents should accept the outcome of a free and fair election.

Now he is being schooled in what is illegal. Jack Smith is charging him under Title 18, Section 241, of the U.S. Code, a civil-rights era statute which prohibits efforts to interfere with both the process of voting and the accurate counting of the vote.

Trump also violated something older – the Constitution – something he publicly swore to protect. His own attorney has gone on national television to explain that Trump’s “technical violation of the Constitution“ was not a crime, but it should be dealbreaker if he wants to be president again under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. The GOP are skilled at digging up elderly laws, like the Comstock Act, to prevent women from getting access to birth control and emergency contraceptives. But they aren’t thrilled about a Civil War-era amendment being used against their own. However, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) was successful in citing it to remove a New Mexico official for joining the mob on January 6.

This is not a slam dunk action. Make some noise!

Why secretaries of states are so important!

Self-executing feature of Section 3 – “Neither Congress, nor Congress through impeachment, nor a judicial order, nor the results of a criminal conviction are needed under the professors’ reading of Section 3 and my reading and Professor Tribe’s that the former president is disqualified from holding the office of the presidency.“

What did Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment actually say?

“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.”

(Bloomberg) “…when the 14th Amendment was drafted after the Civil War, the original meaning of Section 3 was that anyone who previously held public office and then rebelled against the US government should be automatically barred from office unless two-thirds of Congress made an exception. This constitutional provision is law and requires no further action by Congress to implement it, the article says. Courts can and should apply it, but we don’t need to wait for them to do so. Any government official, state or federal, whose duty it is to apply the Constitution must obey Section 3. It follows, the authors say, that the state officials who set the ballots for the primaries and general elections should exclude Trump. If he wants to fight that in court, he can. But there’s no need for the officials to wait for a judicial determination.”

Is it still relevant?

Section 3 has long since faded into history.” – Eric Foner

(Baude and Paulsen) “Reports of Section Three’s demise are greatly exaggerated. It turns out that Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment remains of direct and dramatic rele- vance today—a vital, fully operative rule of constitutional law with potentially far- reaching contemporary real-world consequences. Section Three remains in legal force, and has a broad substantive sweep.“

(Vox) “…Trump was “actively involved” in an extralegal scheme to send fake electors to the Congress, and urged the vice president to unlawfully accept these fake electors over the real ones and crown Trump president. In service of his scheme, he provided “direct support for” and “specific encouragement” of the mob that ransacked the Capitol on January 6 in his speech, his tweets, private statements, and refusal to take actions (like calling in the National Guard) that could have stopped the mob.

“The bottom line is that Donald Trump both ‘engaged in’ ‘insurrection or rebellion’ and gave ‘aid or comfort’ to others engaging in such conduct, within the original meaning of those terms as employed in Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment,” Baude and Paulsen write. “If the public record is accurate, the case is not even close.”

Is there any serious objection that Trump was involved in the insurrection?

This video includes footage of House Majority leader Kevin McCarthy and Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell placing the insurrection on Trump.

Resources

(The Atlantic) The Constitution Prohibits Trump From Ever Being President Again – The only question is whether American citizens today can uphold that commitment. (By J. Michael Luttig and Laurence H. Tribe)
(The Atlantic) Trump Discovers That Some Things Are Actually Illegal – The cases against the former president aren’t criminalizing politics. They’re criminalizing, well, crimes.
(papers.ssrn.com) The Sweep and Force of Section Three, by William Baude and Michael Stokes Paulsen (PDF of paper here.)
(Just Security) Their Fourteenth Amendment, Section 3 and Ours
(CRS) The Insurrection Bar to Office: Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment
(Hill) Activists want to disqualify Trump from ballot in key states under 14th Amendment
(Vox.com) The constitutional case that Donald Trump is already banned from being president
(Guardian) Could Trump be barred under the constitution’s ‘engaged in insurrection’ clause? -Experts suggest language in section 3 of 14th amendment is ‘actually very clearcut’ and could mean disqualification
(NBC) If Trump committed ‘a technical violation of the Constitution,’ it’s not a crime, his lawyer says – Later on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, who sat on the House panel that investigated the Capitol riot, said Lauro’s argument was “deranged.”
(CREW) Judge removes Griffin from office for engaging in the January 6 insurrection
(FSFP) States can enforce Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment without any new federal legislation.
(FSFP) 14Point3 article list
(FSFP) Trump is Disqualified from the Ballot
(FSFP) The 14POINT3 Campaign
(Trumpisdisqualified.org) Secretaries of State must abide by Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment and bar Donald Trump from appearing on any future ballot.
(Free Speech) Letter to CA Secretary of State Shirley N. Weber