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Comment by Miner49er | Hacker News Reader

I'm no Trump supporter, but I find this decision very undemocratic. Seven judges have the power to prevent someone from being voted for by the people?

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It's more that there are a bunch of people arguing and filing briefs if a person falls within the purview of the law. It's not just 7 people, those judges were appointed by elected officials, so the people have had a say in how we got to here.

By and large, the constitution grants wide privilege for states to decide how they run their elections, and how they validate whether a person is qualified. I'm watching the actual proceedings right now, they arguments are interesting so far.

This is also the same thesis underlying the ability to do mass mail in voting during a pandemic and the increasing coalition of states that intend to honor the national popular vote rather than the results of their state.

> By and large, the constitution grants wide privilege for states to decide how they run their elections, and how they validate whether a person is qualified.

Do you have any historical precedent in which the population of a state have legally been denied the right to vote for one of the premier candidates of a major election a la the President? The only cases I'm familiar with is that historically entire subsections of the citizenry have not been allowed to vote: landless, blacks, women. Most don't think of those times as ideals to emulate.

The Amendment (and argument) at the core of this is the 14th amendment, as was passed at the end of the civil war. Section 3, "the sedition clause" was largely enacted to prevent the leaders of the south and the rebellion from holding office ever again. This is part of the argument the lawyers supporting the ban draw on. That when they wrote the law, the discussions about it, and how they used the words in 1868, most certainly sought to include the office of the president from those positions that a person, if found guilt of breaking their oath to uphold the constitution, in the list of offices and similar roles that said person would never again be allowed to hold. Jefferson Davis, as the president of the Confederacy, was denied the right to ever hold an office again. At the time, there would have been broad support among a subset of states to elect Davis to President were he allowed to do so. So, yes, there is a similar example were many people deprived of voting for their popular choice for President.

I'm watching the actual proceedings, It's pretty interesting so far. I keep getting distracted and looking things up for more context, so I've only seen one side's arguments so far.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cz4ZqwrsipA

There are largely two questions being explored

1. Is the President included or excluded from 14.3?

2. Does the state have the jurisdiction and/or right to determine if Trump is disqualified for certain actions while in office?

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I think the answer to Q1 is yes, the President is most certainly covered in the language that bars oath breakers from holding office again. SCOTUS, as part of the judicial branch, is similar in that it is not called out explicitly, and umbrella'd under the term "office" like the executive branch. Those positions explicitly called out are not typically referred to as holding offices (senators/reps, electors of Pres/VP)

Q2, I don't know

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After reading the Judges' opinions it seems (https://www.courts.state.co.us/userfiles/file/Court_Probatio...)

1. There is consensus among both sides that 14.3 does in fact include the President (good, thank you)

2. Question 2 can boil down to due process. Dissenters point out, Trump has not been convicted of insurrection yet, and due process ought to apply when using insurrection to disqualify given the complexity of the question and the gravity of the issue. The majority opinion confirms the lower courts admission of the evidence and their decision that Trump did engage in insurrection.

I find it surprising that the lower court found that Trump engaged in insurrection but denied the ban on the premise that 14.3 doesn't cover the president.

I believe the Fourteenth Amendment gives Congress the power of enforcement, not the Colorado Supreme Court. I don’t think the framers intended for people to pick and choose parts of the Constitution to go after people they don’t like.

not exactly, the court found that

1. The constitution grants broad authority to states on how to run their elections. This include voter qualifications, how the process is performed, and if candidates qualify. This is the same right granted to states that allowed for the rapid change to mass mail-in ballots during the pandemic and requiring ids for voting. Both parties rely on this state level authority for arguing for and against eligible voter agendas.

2. When you look at the language in the 14th, you find very similar language in several other amendments. They found that by and large, 14.3 is self-executing despite 14.5. To rule the opposite would have undone a ton of precedent and created chaos in the larger legal system. That being said, Congress can vote, with a 2/3 majority, to over turn a disqualification. They cannot however adjugate how a state determines qualifications, minus a few federal rules like age and being a citizen.

On the finding that Trump had engaged in insurrection, the lower court found there was ample evidence in Trump's public statements (tweets & speeches) to say he engaged in insurrection. The CO SC confirmed this finding. Team Trump argued there was no due process, thus it is unfair to reach this conclusion, they do not dispute the facts, just the inference. The petitioning side argued that this is a judicial review of an elected official in doing their job, thus a jury trial and all that is not required.

I think one way to make an analogy here is to consider OJ Simpson, who was found not-guilty in a criminal case (trump's criminal case is ongoing) while he was found civilly liable and lost all his money (trump is disqualified)

Unprecedented times don't constrain us to the historical events. And we have a Constitution which we follow when unprecedented times do arise. If we don't want to follow the Constitution, fine, but there is a process defined in it for doing that as well, as unlikely as it seems in modern times. Clearly, while there is some room for discussion about the law as written, it seems like reasonable people believe this is one of those unprecedented times and are applying the law.

Well, perhaps people seeking leadership positions should distance themselves from situations where they may violate laws which cause the effect of losing the ability to be a candidate. Or, as the kids say these days, fuck around and find out.

> perhaps people seeking leadership positions should distance themselves from situations where they may violate laws

Ironically, after watching proceedings and reading opinions from several Trump cases, I think Trump is having a hard time finding good lawyers because the good ones are distancing themselves from situations where they may violate laws which cause the effect of losing their ability to practice law. i.e. They don't want to fuck around and find out

Section 3 of the 14th Amendment was added to the Constitution after the Civil War, where the very people who committed treason against the Union ran for office. Hence the need to clarify that those people are ineligible.

Same thing happened in Germany after WWII, where Nazis tried to run for office and the law was changed to forbid them from holding political office.

Virtually all democracies have provision for disqualifying people who are anti-democratic.

These type of protections existed before WWII. The Nazis were forbidden for a time, but that was reverted because nobody cared.

Wait until you find out how party committees and the electoral college work.

And that nine unelected judges with lifetime positions can just decide what parts of the Constitution are valid, and what aren't, whenever they like.

> whenever they like

A case needs to be brought and make its way through the lower courts first

Ok, I overreached on that one. But not by much.

No I'm aware, those are obviously antidemocratic as well. This is just further evidence that America is not a democracy, is what I'm basically saying.

SCOTUS is appointed by the President and approved by Congress, both elected by the people. It's how the democracy was designed

Makes sense, as it’s a constitutional republic.

Bit of a silly counter argument. This is like saying free speech is strictly define by what the US law says, rather than it first and foremost being a widely held cultural value that became enshrined in US law as a reflection of that culture.

Expecting the US to be democratic is a value people hold and it's legitimate to expect it from their government. Even if they don't understand the functions of lower political bodies. [Note: to be clear I'm not making a point re: this ruling, just wanted to point that out]

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