Sorry, but this is absolutely a victory for democracy and what little structure our government still has. If the states were to be allowed to remove candidates from the ballot, you could kiss any chance of Democrat candidates showing up on red state ballots goodbye.
Except for the part where they punt to Congress as the sole arbiter of whether Trump engaged in insurrection. They absolutely know Congress won’t get off its collective ass to enforce, because it’s too broken to even pass a budget.
If a person cannot hold an office, they are typically also disqualified from running for said office, for exactly that reason. What would you do if an ineligible person won the election? That would be utter chaos.
They can’t really sue to disqualify him in federal court because Congress hasn’t defined any process to do so. They absolutely could if they wanted though. As of right now if I’m correct the only way to disqualify someone is if they’re convicted of rebellion or insurrection under 18 U.S.C. § 2383 as it specifically lists it as part of the punishment. Or Congress could potentially disqualify someone directly by name – it wouldn’t necessarily be an illegal bill of attainder because it carries no criminal penalty.
Call me old fashioned, but an outgoing president who falsely claims their challenger stole the election and incites their supporters to storm the capitol building should be barred from holding office again, Democrat or Republican.
I absolutely agree. But it’s up to Congress to actually do that. That’s the branch of government that has failed here.
States remove candidates routinely. It’s their constitutional right. Except with Trump for some reason.
Do you have any examples of that? I’m certainly no expert in this subject, so I’d love to know more.
