It took months before the first mention of Section 3 in a public document. Free Speech For People, a Massachusetts-based liberal nonprofit, sent letters to top election officials in all 50 states in June 2021, warning them not to place Trump on the ballot should he run again in 2024 because he had violated the provision.

None of them took action, part of a general silence in reaction to the group’s arguments.

“People were just treating it as something that was not serious,” recalled John Bonifaz, the group’s co-founder.

By January 2022, the group decided to test Section 3 in court.

Looking for a lower-level defendant, Sherman’s organization zeroed in on Couy Griffin. The subject of one of the earliest Jan. 6 prosecutions, Griffin already has a rich legal record. He was was recorded in a restricted area of the U.S. Capitol as head of a group called Cowboys for Trump. Griffin was convicted of illegally entering the Capitol, but acquitted of engaging in disorderly conduct.

He still served as a commissioner in a rural New Mexico county, which kept CREW’s attention on him. On Sept. 6, 2022, a New Mexico judge ordered Griffin removed from his position. It was the first time in more than 100 years an official had been removed under Section 3. Griffin has appealed to the Supreme Court.

  • ono@lemmy.ca
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    10 months ago

    Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

    Section 3: Disqualification from office for insurrection or rebellion

    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.

  • ironsoap@lemmy.one
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    10 months ago

    The end is the most enlighting vs the legal losses:

    With most jurisdictions dodging the questions at the heart of the case, it can create a misleading impression that things have gone well for the former president.

    “The cases have gone poorly for Trump,” Derek Muller, a Notre Dame law professor who has followed the cases closely, wrote Friday in a blog post. “He lost on the merits in the only two jurisdictions that got to the merits, Colorado and Maine.”

    • shalafi@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      He didn’t lose Colorado. That judge may well have handed his ass to him.

      She ruled that Trump factually engaged in insurrection. In our legal system, a higher court has to take that finding as fact. Her decision was getting appealed no matter what, so she threw a solid “fuck you” in there.

  • Monument@lemmy.sdf.org
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    10 months ago

    That’s great in theory.

    If the Supreme Court chooses to hear the case before the election.

    The U.S. has had numerous elections in the past few years held with maps deemed to be unconstitutional because the courts either decided ‘too late’ or did not require those drawing the maps to adhere to a deadline.
    In North Carolina, after the 2020 map was tossed, they used it anyway because the state republicans did not offer a new map. When they won big under the illegally gerrymandered map, which included changing the makeup of their state Supreme Court, they redrew the maps to be even more discriminatory - with no normal recourse for citizens to fix them. A federal panel adopted the issue last year, referring it to the U.S. Supreme Court, which despite hearing arguments 8 months ago has so far not issued a ruling.

    My confidence level in the rule of law is incredibly low right now.

  • RotaryKeyboard@lemmy.sdf.org
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    10 months ago

    His research was published eight days before the insurrection? This man is clearly a time traveler from a dystopian future who was sent back in time to stop Donald Trump.

  • ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works
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    10 months ago

    Imagine if the American government had moved quickly and impeached and convicted trump and removed him from office in January 2021 immediately instead of just doing as liyyle as possible and waiting and hoping for the problem to fix itself by having private groups slowly try to bring court cases to SCOTUS.