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Donald Trump is at war with the Constitution's insurrection clause—just 2 sentences in an amendment added after the Civil War (fortune.com)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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"“If President Trump committed a heinous act worthy of disqualification, he should be disqualified for the sake of protecting our hallowed democratic system, regardless of whether citizens may wish to vote for him in Colorado,”

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

If there's a strict requirement that candidates be "scrombled" but no definition of what scrombled means, it never gets tested, and the only guy challenged on it is as a proxy for his being Black, there isn't any hard rule at all.

Rules can only be strict if they have established parameters.

There are no defined parameters for "natural born".
Could argue it only applies to clones.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

But they do. The agencies that monitor such things have policies, and those are the defacto parameters until someone challenges them and we get a court ruling. That's how things work in government, the legislative branch passes a law, the executive interprets the law, and the judicial branch hears cases when people disagree with the executive branch's interpretation of the law.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

What are the policies for what "natural born" means?

If there were clear parameters as you claim why did McCain supporters have to bother with Senate Resolution 511?

[–] sugar_in_your_tea 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

The resolution was made to prevent a legal challenge. Policy is not law, it's policy, and policies can be challenged in the courts. So to avoid a potentially drawn out legal challenge, the Senate clarified their understanding of the law to avoid the whole thing.

They probably didn't need to make the resolution in order to allow McCain to run, and the judicial branch likely would've found that McCain was, in fact, eligible, such a legal suit could stall or change (i.e. in the court of public opinion) election results, hence the resolution.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Why would they fear a challenge if the parameters were clear as you say?

[–] sugar_in_your_tea 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Why wouldn't they? Even something that seems like an open and shut case can take months or even years in court to resolve. That takes time away from campaigning, as well as likely reduced support for the accused. It's the same idea as a smear campaign.

So to avoid drama, they made that resolution so his candidacy wouldn't be questioned.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

So there aren't clear parameters.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea 1 points 10 months ago

There are. We're going in circles at this point.