Federal Judge Rejects Dem Activist Attempt To Keep Madison Cawthorn Off NC Ballot Via 14th Amendment Insurrectionist Bar
Democrat election lawyer Mark Elias predicted Democrats would try to keep Republicans off ballots using J6 as an excuse, and a North Carolina activist group took up the call. But a federal judge rejected the attempt.
The Democratic Party is not popular in America; in fact, they are sinking under the weight of their radical leftist agenda fast, with Joe “I am the Democratic Party” Biden, weird whispering from the helm.
His message to the American people is that we are just too stupid or too depressed to know how great things are going. That’s a winning message if ever I heard one.
With unpopular policies that drive inflation, laser focus on socio-cultural destruction that only a tiny (but vocal) portion of their own party cares about, and a hugely unpopular president and vice president, Democrats are giving up on winning elections at the polls and have turned to, among other tactics, trying to use their ridiculous faux hysteria about J6 to disqualify Republicans from running for office.
North Carolina Rep. Madison Cawthorn was targeted for such a move based on his speaking at a public event on January 6, 2021. The crazy left is attempting to argue that his giving a speech “amounted to an insurrection.”
A judge just blocked this ridiculous attempt to block Cawthorn from running for office.
HUGE VICTORY!
The left’s lawfare tactics have failed.
On to re-election! https://t.co/LqzyMoNOC2
— Madison Cawthorn (@CawthornforNC) March 4, 2022
A federal judge Friday blocked an effort to keep U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn off North Carolina ballot this year, saying the state’s election board can’t proceed with an inquiry that would have delved his role leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Chief District Court Judge Richard Myers said he couldn’t allow the challenge, filed by attorneys looking to label the first-term Republican as an insurrectionist who should be legally barred from the ballot, to move forward. The courts, Myers said, must protect the soapbox, the ballot box and the jury box.
“When those fail, that’s when people proceed to the ammunition box,” said Myers, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump.
The next step remains unclear. The North Carolina State Board of Elections could appeal Myers’ decision, but the legal team representing the board declined to say whether the board will do so. An elections board spokesman said the board was reviewing the court’s decision, which came down a bit before 12:30 p.m.
The New York Times has more in their article, “Judge Blocks Effort to Disqualify Cawthorn from Ballot as ‘Insurrectionist’: A district judge ruled that the Amnesty Act of 1872, which forgave confederates, overruled a clause in the 14th Amendment barring ‘insurrectionists’ from Congress.”
A judge on Friday blocked a novel electoral challenge that sought to disqualify Representative Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina from running for re-election by labeling him an insurrectionist, issuing an equally novel order that invoked a post-Civil War law that forgave confederate soldiers and sympathizers.
U.S. District Judge Richard E. Myers II, an appointee of President Donald J. Trump, stepped in to squelch an effort by lawyers and voters in North Carolina who had filed a motion before the state’s Board of Elections declaring Mr. Cawthorn, 26, ineligible for re-election under the Constitution. They had contended that the first-term Republican’s support for rioters who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, made him an “insurrectionist,” and therefore barred him from office under the little-known third section of the 14th Amendment, adopted during Reconstruction to punish members of the Confederacy.
That section declares that “no person shall” hold “any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath” to “support the Constitution,” had then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”
Judge Myers sided with the argument of James Bopp Jr., a prominent conservative campaign lawyer, who noted that section three concluded with a caveat: “Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.” The Amnesty Act of 1872 did just that when it declared that “all political disabilities imposed by the third section” of the 14th amendment were “hereby removed from all persons whomsoever.”
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
The ruling angered lawyers in the case who argued that the 1872 law applied only to Civil War confederates, not any insurrectionist in the future, and that a law could not usurp a constitutional amendment.
“According to this court ruling, the 1872 amnesty law, by a trick of wording that — although no one noticed it at the time, or in the 150 years since — completely undermined Congress’s careful decision to write the insurrectionist disqualification clause to apply to future insurrections,” said Ron Fein, the legal director of Free Speech For People, an organization that helped with the case. “This is patently absurd.”
But Mr. Bopp said on Friday that, because the 14th Amendment applied to past and future insurrections, so did the subsequent amnesty. Judge Myers, a former law professor at the University of North Carolina and clerk at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, agreed.
Mr. Fein called for the ruling to be appealed, but the activists who brought the challenge cannot do that. Since the injunction was aimed at the state, only the North Carolina State Board of Elections or the state attorney general can appeal, and it is not clear that either will get involved.
Apparently, there was some hope that they could question Cawthorn about his urging constituents to call their Congresscritter and “lightly threaten” them (to me this means, saying you won’t donate to or vote for them, but who knows what the crazy left hears).
The New York Times continues:
The challengers had hoped to at least get to question Mr. Cawthorn under oath for his role in stoking the violence that erupted at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and sympathizing with those who carried it out. Mr. Cawthorn had encouraged conservatives to gather in Washington on that day for a “Save America” rally behind the White House. He had urged Mr. Trump’s supporters to “call your congressman” to protest Congress’s official count of electoral votes to finalize the 2020 election results, adding, “you can lightly threaten them.” And after the riot, Mr. Cawthorn asserted that those jailed for storming the Capitol were “political hostages” that he would like to “bust” out of prison.
You can view the court docket here.
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Comments
James Michael Curley, former Democrat Boston mayor, once ran for governor of MA from prison (corruption) and won. I wonder if that was brought up in court this time.
Only Democratic Party felons and ne’er do wells may run for office. See Alcee Hastings.
Only insurrectionist supporting Democratic Party KKK members can run for elected office. See Robert Byrd.
Only suspected murderers who leave women to drown in cars can run for office. See the “Lyin’ of the Senate” Ted (who traveled to Russia to suck on Communist …) Kennedy can run for elected office.
Why would it be brought up? How is it in any way relevant? The 14th amendment doesn’t control who can run for governor of Massachusetts. If Jefferson Davis himself had run for that office, and MA voters had decided to elect him, there was no reason he could not have taken office. But once the 14th amendment was passed, Davis could no longer be elected to Congress; that was the purpose of section 3 of the amendment. And had the Amnesty Act not passed, anyone who participated in an insurrection today could not be elected to Congress; they could still be elected to a state governorship.
Controversy always finds a Democratic politician.
“no person shall” hold “any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, (emphasis added)
I think it actually did prohibit running for governor.
I don’t think governorship is an “office under the state”.
As used in the constitution, “office under the united states” means appointed office, not elected. That’s why the amendment specifically bars insurrectionists not only from holding “any office under the united states”, but also from being a senator, a representative, or an elector, because those are not offices.
They were not barred from being elected president or vice president, because it would have been impossible for anyone to be so elected with support only from rebel sympathizers. If the whole nation decided to elect Alexander Stephens president, the 14A’s ratifiers would have been OK with that. But they were not OK with the people of Georgia electing him to congress.
By the way, in several comments here I incorrectly wrote 1878 as the year the amnesty was passed. In fact it was 1872, and the following year Stephens was in fact elected to Congress, and served there without any problem.
Curley was a character, his re-election motto was “Vote early and often for Curley”. A true Democrat.
Occasionally we actually win one. But do not expect this ruling to go unchallenged. One thing we should all recognize about The Left is that no issue is ever settled until it is settled in their favor, and then forever.
However, in this case it will be interesting to see what the elections board does. If it appeals, then all bets are off and we will have elections in which only leftist candidates may run.
Ammunition box, indeed.
I think this technique has been successfully used most often in Russia and Iran. They disqualify everyone they don’t like, and then they have a ballot that only includes the chosen candidates.
In this country, the general rule is that if you think someone is bad, you can say so during the campaign, but you can’t block them from running.
The 14th amendment says otherwise. It explicitly bars insurrectionists from running, unless Congress says they can. And in 1878 Congress used that power to say that all insurrectionists can run, except certain people, all of whom are now dead.
Seems to me the first step would be for the plaintiffs to establish that an “insurrection” had actually occurred and then that Cawthorn had been a part of it. That first part appears to be a pretty high bar to meet.
That’s why they were using this ploy, there is no requirement that they establish this (or so they hoped), the burden of proof would be to convince the Board of Elections that Cawthorne wasn’t involved in an insurrection.
I don’t think Elias will stop with this case. This one may get appealed, but I would be surprised if the same tactic wasn’t tried in other districts.
It is a high bar, because not only wasn’t the riot an insurrection, but Cawthorn had no connection to it in the first place. But rather than get into messy questions of fact-finding, the court took the easy way by pointing out that even if Cawthorn had participated in an actual literal insurrection he’d still be allowed to run because Congress said so in 1878.
Courts almost always will do that — if they can rule on procedure they do that, if they can’t rule on procedure but can rule on the law they do that, and only if they can do neither do they rule on the facts. It’s the way courts work, and there is nothing wrong with that.
Any knowledge of history shows this attempt would fail. Numerous former Confederates were not only elected to Congress after the war but also served on federal government commissions, diplomatic posts, in the armed forces, and, yep, even sat on the SCOTUS bench. Exhibit A: former Confederate Veep who was elected to both the Senate (not seated due to GOP objections) and House (served 1873-1882).
Huh?! No former confederates were elected to congress, or served on any of those offices, after the 14th amendment was passed and before the amnesty was passed.
Yes, some were elected before the amendment; that’s precisely why section 3 of the amendment was passed in the first place! It was precisely because the nation was outraged that these people had been elected, and wanted to make sure it could not happen again.
If giving aid and comfort to enemies of the Constitution disqualifies people from Congress, how are there any Democrats seated at all?
Because “enemies thereof” means people who have literally taken up arms to overthrow it by force, not merely those who don’t like it and seek to amend it or to violate it.
Milhouse, pull back and don’t be a pedant.
This is not pedantry, it’s the actual answer to malclave’s question.
It’s clear that many Democrats are hostile to the US constitution, so why are they not disqualified under 14.3A? One answer, of course, is the amnesty; but the more relevant answer is that mere hostility doesn’t make one an “enemy thereof” as that term is used in 14.3A.
I ask the same of any military veteran police officer who who swore the oath they did before going into the military.
The amnesty is only the first and easiest bar for this to have worked.
Significantly more importantly
1. Contrary to media beliefs insurrection doesn’t mean “I said you did insurrection therefore you did it” it is a FELONY.
Lets go over what that means legally.
The only type of person who has legally committed a felony is someone convicted of that felony so no the state can’t say “We know you did a homicide O.J. Simpson therefore we are going to deprive you of” no conviction legally the man is completely innocent. Even if as in OJ Simpson everyone not on the jury thinks he did it.
2. What a board of people who aren’t judges or juries determining a crime happened and levying a penalty outside of a courtroom is according to our constitution is a Bill of Attainder if it imposes death penalty (which Constitution bans in ALL circumstances) and Bill of Pain if it doesn’t (which is also banned in ALL circumstances).
3. Political rights are your most fundamental. Constitution bans people who have been in insurrection from exercise of some of those, however before you are part of an insurrection you need to be CONVICTED of insurrection. No conviction and a penalty for it is a Bill of Pains (which are illegal if the Constitution means anything).
In light of the fact that the Constitution bans being a fascistic state where you have Bills of Attainder or Bills of Pains the best case scenario for an appeal is “This atrociously illegal behavior is illegal for this reason instead of that one”.
That is not true at all. No conviction is necessary for an insurrectionist to be barred from congress. None of the people section 3 was directly written to remove from congress had been convicted of anything. None of them had even been charged. The war was over, and they were elected; the North was outraged, so it amended the constitution to bar them from office. And it explicitly provided that not even a presidential pardon would be enough to let them be elected; only permission by congress itself could do that.
(accidentally made this post as not a response) So let me get this clear.
You are comparing accusation of FELONY to being president of the CSA or governor of Alabama during the civil war?
Are you completely historically illiterate or just trying to defend the indefensible?
“Constitution bans you from this position if you held this position in this country” vs “constitution adds this penalty for this crime that no judge or even the president could remove” The Constitution punished people for holding public positions like General of the Army of Northern Virginia, or Governor of South Carolina during the Civil War.
Nobody passed middle school believes those are the same things or that someone holding the rank of Senator in the CSA is the same as being accused of a felony. You have absolutely no legal leg to stand on arguing for a Bill of Pains, none.
The day you could be barred from running for INSURRECTION (AN ACTUAL FELONY!!!!!!!!!) without being convicted for that crime is the day a board of men could decide OJ needs to have his rights removed for murder despite him not being a convicted murderer.
If the framers of the 14th had wanted to remove due process from future generations they would have amended the Constitution to remove protections from Bills of Attainder and Bills of Pain.
If you don’t think having your political rights revoked is a punishment please stop taking heroine, The Constitution adds an extra punishment for the FELONY of insurrection, applying that punishment requires conviction.
Unless of course they say are Major Generals in the Confederate Army that hasn’t existed since the middle of the 19th century (in which case they are protected by amnesty anyway).
Danny, the entire point of section 3 of the 14th amendment was to remove Confederate politicians and generals from Congress. That is the section we are discussing, which would also have barred Cawthorn from Congress, (1) had the Jan-6-2021 riot been an insurrection, (2) had he participated in it, and (3) had Congress not explicitly waived the disqualification for all but a handful of people, all of whom are now dead.
If any one of these suppositions is false, Cawthorn is eligible, and in fact all three are false. But had they all been true he would be barred, and there would be no need for him to be charged with a crime, let alone convicted, just as was the case with the confederates for whom the section was written in the first place.
The fact that insurrection is also a felony for which someone can be charged and, if convicted, criminally punished, is completely irrelevant. The 14.3 disqualification is not one of the criminal penalties a court can impose (or not impose) as a punishment for insurrection. It’s a completely separate thing, a consequence that comes automatically upon a person participating in an insurrection, regardless of whether it’s a crime.
Suppose Congress were to pass a law explicitly making insurrection legal, but had not passed the Amnesty Act; people who acted on such a law would have done nothing wrong, but they would still be ineligible for election to Congress.
So determining whether someone is disqualified under 14.3 is exactly the same as determining whether they’re disqualified under the original qualification clause, e.g. because they’re too young, or because they haven’t been a US citizen for long enough. Of course no criminal conviction is required for those, because they’re not crimes. The same must be true for insurrection, and the fact that it happens to be a crime is irrelevant.
If the framers of the 14th amendment meant otherwise, they could have written “…shall have been convicted of engaging…”. But they didn’t. They wrote “shall have engaged” because they meant anyone who had done so, even if not convicted of anything.
All of which is irrelevant because the 1878 amnesty made this section inoperative for all but a few exceptions, all of whom are now dead.
If the judge is right and the amnesty act applies to people today, the exceptions do as well. All of the exceptions are not dead. One exception is military officers.
Fair enough. So if any military officers, judges, cabinet secretaries, or ambassadors had participated in the Capitol riot, they would have to rely on the fact that it was not an insurrection. And any ditto who participated in CHAZ, etc., would in fact be disqualified.
Oops. In fact not fair enough. You’re right about the 1872 amnesty not extending to military officers, but the 1898 one says “the disability imposed by section three of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States heretofore incurred is hereby removed.” No exceptions this time.
Not being a confederate politician or general but an accused insurrectionist he would have been entitled to his day in court according to other sections of the Constitution.
If a new amendment banned men who murdered their wife from running or holding elected office it wouldn’t effect OJ Simpson because he is not convicted even though we all know for sure he is guilty.
Not that it matters very much the NC AG is not appealing this decision.
No, Danny, there is no difference between being “a confederate politician or general” and an “insurrectionist”. It’s the same disqualification. Confederate politicians and generals were disqualified because they had engaged in insurrection, and no criminal charge was required in order to implement that disqualification. Indeed criminal charges against General Lee and his army were explicitly barred by the terms of Lee’s surrender, and yet they were still disqualified from serving in congress.
And yes, if the constitution were amended so that representatives had to be (1) over 25 years old, (2) US citizens for 14 years, (3) residents of the state they represent, and (4) not to have murdered their wives, then a board of elections would be entitled to deny OJ Simpson a place on the ballot.
(If you believe that boards of elections are entitled to enforce the qualifications at all. There are those who believe only Congress can enforce them, and only after the person has been elected, so boards of elections can’t even keep a 10-year-old Nigerian off the ballot if he chooses to file; they’d have to let him run, and then if he’s elected it would be up to the House to refuse to seat him.)
Not trying to be mean, but advocates should realize when they are wrong. Your saying OJ would be banned from running after being found not guilty…sorry ArtI.S9.C3.1 very much says otherwise.
Under the eyes of our legal system the ONLY guilty people are people who have been convicted of a crime. LEGAL eligibility is always based on someone’s legal status. I used the OJ example because we all could agree he is guilty, he is not guilty under the eyes of the law and no he would not be excluded for a crime the law says he didn’t commit.
Boards of election are permitted to go through legal qualifications such as age, citizen status and yes if your criminal history prevents you running. Criminal history however is only for crimes you have been convicted of, that has always been how the law has worked and always will be.
Just write to the relevant law and ask about the leader of Chaz and if he is eligible to run, you will be told he has not been convicted of the crime you listed, and not because his state is left wing but because that is the law.
It’s one thing to say somebody is disqualified for participating in an insurrection. But who makes the decision about whether it actually was an insurrection and whether the person accused of participating in it actually did? Who adjudicates the question, so to speak? It sounds like, in this case, it’s a matter for the federal courts to rule on as a civil matter based on a preponderance of the evidence? Just wondering.
Democrats could try a new radical approach and win at the ballot box right?!?
Who the fuck am I kidding! No one capable of rubbing two or more brain cells together would vote for these brain dead fucks (unless they themselves are brain dead fucks)!! So of course the only route open to Democrats is to steal elections.
Fuck them!
“Democrats could try a new radical approach and win at the ballot box right?!?”
You mean by winning the popular vote, sure done that for years. Unlike Republicans who have a built in advantage with respect to elections.
Don’t bother trying to claim election fraud, that’s a total joke. Unless of course your saying that Trump committed fraud, that’s got actual evidence (unlike the kraken).
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/advantage-gop/
1. You mean national popular vote, but what has that got to do with it? Congress is not supposed to reflect the total national vote. A representative represents only his district, not the nation, and by definition each representative has won the popular vote there.
2. Of course there is massive election fraud. The evidence for that is overwhelming, and only a complete liar would bother denying it. It’s been notorious for more than a century. And the evidence is that it overwhelmingly benefits the Democrat Party. But that’s not relevant here.
1) Sure, but that’s on the premise that the slicing of congressional districts is fair which we know its not. Thus the national picture is more representative.
2) Nope you have zero evidence to support that claim, If you wish point me in the direction of a source that establishes your point of view or indeed give me one piece of evidence. I know you wont since I’ve read your commentary previously and you rely on the ludicrous ‘oh but it cant be detected’ premise. Which by the way as a standard for stating anything is crap.
1. There is no such premise. What is “fair”? Elbridge Gerry, who signed off on the original “Gerry-mander”, was a signatory of the Declaration of Independence and of the Articles of Confederation, a delegate to the Philadelphia convention that wrote the constitution, one of the first to demand that a bill of rights be added to it, a member of the first congress, and later a vice president of the USA. He is reported to have been unhappy with the redistricting that to this day bears his name, but he evidently didn’t think it unconstitutional.
2. As I have pointed out at least a dozen times, the greatest evidence for the existence of Democrat election fraud is the party’s consistent and ever-more-frantic efforts to make such fraud easier to commit and harder to detect. If we observe that a bank’s doors have been left open overnight, the safe unlocked, the alarm turned off and the cameras deactivated, while all records that would indicate how much had been in the safe at the close of business have been destroyed, we need nothing more to conclude that a burglary must have occurred overnight.
Likewise if we believe the water is full of five-inch fish, but we are forbidden to fish for them with a net smaller than six inches, and the person who imposed that prohibition then loudly proclaims that this proves there are no fish in the water, that is sufficient proof that the fish exist.
Huh? From under which rock did you crawl? I’m not even sure your “an”s and “the”s are correct.
With respect have you anything substantive to add or not?
fatso is a liar, a marxist, and a paid fraud.
I doubt he’s being paid.
Bless your heart fatty 🤣 Its like you have no idea how the system was designed to work 🤣🤣
Mind you, pig ignorance is a Democrat hallmark 🤣🤣
Mailman a euphemism for the lack of understanding or ability to comprehend facts or arguments. As per usual I’m not seeing much in the way of substance. If you have a point make it. How does the ‘system’ work, is your word more valid than the DoJ, the Trump appointee who advised on election security, the state investigators who looked into the claims, or perhaps the Trump campaign lawyers who sent a memo to Trump to say that actually the case for fraud was rubbish.
If you have actual evidence or a source giving an argument feel free to send it. From your complete lack of argument I suspect you don’t have a clue how to even form an argument let along present one in relation to something that’s been so widely debunked that its embarrassing.
Your source does back the idea that the GOP has an advantage in # of states that is hidden by struggling with the popular vote (although in 2016 I think you would agree Democrats struggled with that to? 48% is no more a majority than 46.5%). However don’t you think a regime of censorship, and Democrat control of the major institutions of this country give them an advantage?
Your source also has nothing on Trump committing fraud. You seem to just being saying that to try and get people angry. If you want a conversation with the other side you could start with some good faith instead of baiting. This is coming from someone who has argued a lot with half the people here about claims of voter fraud and 2020.
Just to emphasize Danny’s point, Fat, offering differing opinions is one thing, repeatedly (and seemingly for no possible positive reason) baiting our readers is another, and you are doing that a lot of late. We don’t have flame wars in our comment section, and long-time readers get more leeway and benefit of the doubt than new people for obvious reasons. You’re a new person, Fat. And you’re argumentative for no reason except to try to start trouble. That is not okay.
So let me get this clear.
You are comparing accusation of FELONY to being president of the CSA or governor of Alabama?
Are you completely historically illiterate or just trying to defend the indefensible?
“Constitution bans you from this position if you held this position in this country” vs “constitution adds this penalty for this crime that no judge or even the president could remove”
Nobody passed middle school believes those are the same things. You have absolutely no legal leg to stand on arguing for a Bill of Pains, none.
The day you could be barred from running for INSURRECTION (AN ACTUAL FELONY!!!!!!!!!) without being convicted for that crime is the day a board of men could decide OJ needs to have his rights removed for murder despite him not being a convicted murderer.
If the framers of the 14th had wanted to remove due process from future generations they would have amended the Constitution to remove protections from Bills of Attainder and Bills of Pain.
By governor of Alabama I meant governor of Alabama during the civil war. The Civil War involved well a civil war that had the nation split in two. It was a matter of public record who held what office. Just accusation of Insurrection unlike acknowledged fact you held X office however is accusation of a felony, which the Constitution is not ambiguous about.
If you do not think bans from holding public office are punishments stop smoking heroine.
See my reply above. The section we are discussing was passed for the explicit purpose of barring people like Alexander Stevens from Congress, because the nation was outraged that he had been elected. According to you, it could not have barred him unless he’d first been tried and convicted by a jury, with full due process. That’s clearly not the case, so your entire case fails.
And when Madison Cawthorn serves as Vice President of the Confederate States, or some CHAZ/CHOP zone that has explicitly declared itself not part of the United States, you might have a point. Until then, though, you do not.
Fuzzy, you have either not bothered to read the threat before replying, or you are not thinking straight and need another coffee. The point, the only relevant point, is that had Cawthorn participated in an insurrection, and had there been no amnesty, he would be disqualified automatically. No conviction would be needed.
Since (1) the riot was not an insurrection, (2) he didn’t participate in it, and (3) there was an amnesty, he is clearly qualified.
Heh, fair point, Milhouse! I do sometimes type randomly when I’ve had too little (or even sometimes too much) coffee. 🙂
As to this, though, it seemed to me that you were making the case that the entire section was based on, or as you put it, was created “for the explicit purpose of barring people like Alexander Stevens from Congress, because the nation was outraged that he had been elected.” This is historically accurate, but you left out another pretty glaring difference in that the fragile, very recently reconstituted United States was leery of someone who had served as the VP of the Confederacy. Not someone who gave a rousing speech on the same stage as the “wrong” party’s duly-elected president of these United States.
There was no need to try and convict Stephens of that “offense” since it was not only public and historical record but very recent memory that he was the VP of the Confederacy (and all that implied, especially to whacked-out Northerners who to this day have no idea what the War of Northern Aggression was really about, but that’s another topic for another day 😛 ).
Holding significant office in the government of a union of Confederate states that willfully left–or tried to leave and declared themselves a separate republic, a separate government, with a separate Constitution from that of–the United States was widely seen outside the South, anyway (and in some quarters even inside the South), as treasonous to the U.S. and its Constitution.
I just thought it was significant that your bringing up Stephens without the full context was a bit of a stretch. If Cawthorn had declared himself “VP of CHAZ” (or some unimaginable far-right anarchist/autonomous “zone”), I’d be the first one shouting that it was tens kinds of wrong to expect someone like that to uphold the United States Constitution. I wouldn’t sue, of course, because it’s up to voters to decide these things (now as it was after the war), but that would be a bridge far too far for me.
And it all blows up given that all Cawthorn did was give a speech, along with a lot of other pols and pundits, including the sitting President of these United States. This is a political hit job. Period. Trying to make it fit into some legal or historical context is going to end up being ill-considered. The judge in this case may have been too clever by half, but he made me giggle with his ruling. It was just too perfect a response to the crazy.
(That all said, this Stephens section was also just a political hit job. There were a lot of angry people in all the parties of the day, particularly at Lincoln who did not want to see public executions or further horrors, and these angry (opportunistic) people wanted to “cancel” the entire South (not just Stephens, but anyone who was on the “wrong” side) from any activity at all in politics, not national politics, mind, but in local and state politics, even when he ran as governor of Georgia, he faced opposition–who says we are the first to nationalize local and state elections?, but that’s ultimately why the section is so unwieldy and stupid; it’s based on emotion and regionalism/partisan politics, not logic, compassion, or reason as is the foundation of the Constitution and Bill of Rights.).
Sorry, a bit of a history buff, and at this hour, I’ve definitely over-caffeinated. Heh.
No, Fuzzy, the amendment was made because in 1866, right after the war, Stephens was elected to the senate. The nation was outraged, so they changed the constitution to prevent it. Then the national mood changed, and congress lifted the ban (as the amendment allowed it to do), and he was promptly elected to the house, where he served for almost 9 years. Then he resigned from congress in order to become state governor, and died 4 months later.
There is only one disqualifying condition in the amendment: having engaged in insurrection or rebellion (or given aid or comfort to those who did), after having sworn an oath not to do that, in a number of capacities. So you can’t distinguish Stephens from a hypothetical Cawthorn who did those things (as opposed to the actual Cawthorn, who didn’t). If a conviction were necessary in order to apply this disqualification to someone, then it could not have been applied to Stephens without first charging and convicting him. But he wasn’t charged or convicted, and yet its original purpose was to apply to him and those like him, none of whom were charged or convicted either.
I am simply responding to your incomplete invocation of Stephens, Milhouse. Calm down. Why can’t you just have a discussion and share ideas in a friendly manner? I find it so disconcerting that you just turn on me and everyone else to stompy foot and shutup your way to some sort of Pyrrhic victory.
Look, you brought up Stephens, and it’s, as you are now acknowledging (if historically inaccurately), not a good argument in this case. The states that attempted to extricate themselves from the Union, were doing just that. Nothing more. There was no insurrection, what is wrong with you? They wanted OUT, not further in to the point they ran it. Where do you get your information?
Also, the nation gets no say in whom states or districts within states elect. By design, it’s a feature, not a flaw, right? I don’t care if the whole nation is rampaging outrage about my rep–and they are, it’s Matt Gaetz, not even my favorite person, but the more the nation rages, the more I am steeled to vote for him. See how that works?
This was politics then, and it’s politics now. And please stop calling Stephens an “insurrectionist”; it’s inaccurate and does a real disservice to him and to all the Southerners who served the Confederate States. Wanting to leave is not the same as wanting to take over and rule. What is hard to understand about that?
Is the UK “insurrectionist” because they left the EU? BREXIT, the new insurrection and treason! And stuff. Come on, Milhouse, you know that’s crazy.
Fuzzy, who is not having a discussion and sharing ideas in a friendly manner? Who is being hostile here? You, not me. I am simply pointing out the facts, in a completely calm and friendly manner.
My invocation of Stephens was not incomplete. I refer to him as an insurrectionist because that’s what the authors of the section we’re discussing called him. The whole reason why the section was inserted into the constitution was because after the war Stephens and several other confederates were elected to congress, and that upset the nation. So they changed the constitution to bar insurrectionists from being elected; if he wasn’t one, then what was the amendment for?
And yes, the nation certainly does get a say in whom states or districts within states elect, if it amends the constitution to do so. Which it did in 1868. And then changed its mind in 1872, as regards most of the people it was aimed at, such as Stephens, which is how he was able to return to congress the next year.
Milhouse, stop, think, for two seconds. Who is calling anyone an insurrectionist over J6? Anyone who actually matters anyway? Seriously, this is just not making sense to me. It’s politics, Milhouse, not law, not nothing, it’s evil, dirty politics. There is NO justification for lumping Cawthorn, a nobody Rep from NC who spoke at Trump’s January 6th rally, with the VP of the Confederacy Stephens (who even back then still held those offices), yet you work hard to make that work. Why?
Stephens was not insurrectionist, what is this crap? How is wanting OUT of a union the same exact thing as taking it over? That’s illogical and crazy. Further, Cawthorn gave a freaking speech (you’ve heard of the First Amendment, right?); he didn’t say one thing that was remotely, Hey, here’s an idea, let’s be an insurrection and overthrow the government to . . . erm, you know, keep the same government. And stuff. Coolest insurrection evah! Nothing changes! Woo and hoo!
Give me a break.
What is your point here, Milhouse? That Cawthorn should be denied his right, having never ever been involved in anything close to an insurrection (since no such event ever happened), to run for office in his state (where voters will definitely reelect him if given a chance–which is the ONLY reason this lawsuit even happened, you get that much, right?)?
The man never held high office, or ANY office in a “traitorous” confederacy or even in a CHAZ block in Seattle, but he’s an insurrectionist in your book because . . . well, someone somewhere said so? You can’t determine on your own if you agree? And if you do agree, somehow, that Cawthorn is treasonous POS who engaged in insurrection, I would like to see our links. Because that is ten kinds of crazy.
Or are you arguing on the Stephens example that Cawthorn should be denied the right to have the voters in his district and state decide? Which way are your going on this? Or, let me guess, you are going to focus on the minutiae (most of which you have wrong) and thereby preclude drawing a real conclusion about what is really happening. That’s fine, but you do this a LOT while pretending that you have some higher ground. You don’t.
You just nit-pick crap to death and pretend that’s an answer to the real problem/s.
Fuzzy: I have this gushing chest wound and am losing blood.
Milhouse (furiously googling to make sure he’s right about “sucking” chest wounds, while Fuzzy is dying): Well, you probably mean you have a sucking chest wound. That’s not the same thing at all. Let me explain in great depth . . .
Fuzzy: It hurts, I think I’m dying.
Milhouse: well, yes, whatever. I have a long list of people who died from sucking chest wounds (and weren’t so stupid in their dying breaths to call them anything else! Honestly, a sucking chest wound is . . . blah blah blah. Oh, and I didn’t get all my blah blah in that one comment, so I have more blah to add. The main thing here is not that Fuzzy died, but me being right that Fuzzy had a SUCKING chest wound and not a gushing one as she stubbornly said with her dying breath. Proving me right, because of course it was SUCKING chest wound. I’m the most bestest person evah, right!? I called it Sucking chest wound. That dumb Fuzzy just needed more coffee before she died to see my brilliance.
More Milhouse: So wait, dancing on her grave is in bad taste? Who knew? Dancing is a widely and historically and socio-culturally approved acknowledgement of life and joy in at least 50-11 countries on this planet, you RUBES! And . . . hello? Anyone? I was just about to tell you some important things that make me seem less callous and self-involved. HelllooOO!
This little bit of satire doesn’t mean I don’t like reading your posts, Milhouse, I do. I appreciate your viewpoint, even when I disagree (which is much less often than many might think).
But maybe being “right” isn’t the most important thing? /just a thought.
Who is calling anyone an insurrectionist over J6? The Dems are. In this case, the NC Board of Elections is calling Cawthorn one. They’re wrong, of course. But their accusation is the entire point of this discussion. I don’t see how you could not have understood that.
And the point of their accusation is that if he were an insurrectionist, then the constitutional amendment designed specifically to bar Alexander Stephens and several other confederates from sitting in Congress, would (they claim) exclude him too. Which it would, if, in addition to his actually being one (which he isn’t), Congress hadn’t passed the amnesties of 1872 and 1898 (which it did).
But now you are insisting that Stephens wasn’t an insurrectionist, which would mean the 14th amendment didn’t bar him from the Congress! Which is of course absurd. The whole point of that section of the amendment was to bar him, and now you say it didn’t do that?! Then what do you think stopped him from serving in Congress until 1873?
I also don’t understand what you mean by “(who even back then still held those offices)”. In 1866, when he was elected to congress but not seated, he didn’t still hold the office of VP of the no-longer-existing confederacy! Nor did he in 1868, when the amendment to bar him was ratified. I’m baffled.
So, yes, Stephens was an insurrectionist, in the sense meant by the 14A. That is true by definition, and if that doesn’t fit your definition of “insurrectionist” then your definition is wrong. And no, Cawthorn is not one. I have said that over and over and over, so I don’t understand how you can think I don’t know that.
OMG. OM absolutely FG. Fuzzy, you need a coffee, or a nap, or something. How could you by any stretch of anyone’s imagination even think that that could be my point, when I have said the exact opposite at least a dozen times?????? I have not been obscure. I have explained repeatedly, at great length, what my point is, and if you haven’t understood it there is something wrong with you, not with me.
Holding an office is not a requirement for being an insurrectionist, and being barred by the 14th amendment. Living between 1868 and 1872 (or 1898) is. Also actually participating in an actual insurrection.
Again, how the actual f*** could you possibly have read anything I wrote, and yet reach that conclusion, while not being high on fatigue toxins or something stronger?
Then you go on some incomprehensible rant, which I won’t even address because I can’t make head or tail of it, except that you seem not to give a shit about the truth or about understanding the story we are discussing. You don’t give a shit what actually happened. Well, some people evidently do give a shit, because they are bothering to discuss it and ask questions about it. I am answering those questions and explaining what should be basic. And I have to do so at length because some people seem convinced of things that just aren’t so. Such as that there are two categories of people barred by the 14A, and the category the Dems claim Cawthorn is in is different from the one Stephens was actually in, and needs a different standard of proof. So I have to explain why that is not so. Etc. How else can anyone understand this?
Sigh. What the hell are you arguing, Milhouse? That Stephens was an insurrectionist? He wasn’t. That Cawthorn was? He wasn’t. One served as VP to the Confederate States (who never sought insurrection against the U.S.; they didn’t want ANYTHING to do with it beyond whatever treaties, etc. might have arised. Your focus on this “insurrection” crap about the South is just . . . . erm, wrong. Show me where the South’s goal was to usurp the U.S. government, to cause any revolution against it. They didn’t do that. They just wanted OUT. Let me the hell out is not treasonous plotting to cause insurrection and tip the power of state. That’s ten kinds of crazy.
You know I love you to pieces, but I think you are completely off-base on this one.
Fuzzy, your argument is literally insane. How can you claim Stephens was not an insurrectionist as that term is used in the 14th amendment? If so, please explain exactly how that amendment barred him from serving in Congress between 1868 and 1872.
Stephens did engage in insurrection against the constitution. That is why, when he was elected to congress in 1866, the constitution was amended to stop him. And it worked. He was out of congress until the amnesty in 1872.
Cawthorn did not engage in insurrection against the constitution. That is why, even if there had been no amnesty, he would still be eligible And since there was one, he would be eligible even if he had done so.
How can I be any clearer than that?
I am focusing on “this ‘insurrection’ crap” because we are discussing the 14th amendment and that is the term it uses. You can’t deny that and you can’t get away from it. And if you’re not interested in what the amendment says and means, then why did you write this post in the first place, and why are you discussing it?
Lets check the law books
Nope can’t find any felony or statute of being Vice President of the Confederacy.
I can find a statute detailing insurrection however. The ranks and positions of confederates was an undisputed matter of public record, not criminal activity. The FELONY (I am using all caps for a reason) of Insurrection is in fact a crime. The only kind of person who could be punished for a crime by a state is someone convicted of said crime.
Nobody thinks that “Insurrection” and being Vice President of the Confederacy are the same thing. In one case it was unique historic circumstance, in the other it is a FELONY.
You can only have the disabilities of committing a felony if you are convicted of that felony.
Again most states ban murderers from running for office. You can’t ban OJ as a murderer because he hasn’t been convicted of murder.
This was a principle that the founding fathers felt belonged in the Constitution because they didn’t invent the principle this is from Magna Carta which every founding father revered
“No Free man shall be arrested, or imprisoned, or disseised (property taken), or outlawed, or exiled, or in IN ANY WAY DESTROYED, nor will we go against him, nor will we send against him, save by the lawful judgement of his peers or by the law of the land.”
What you have from the 14th ammendment is
1. A series of confederate positions held that are disqualifying even though they aren’t crimes (pop test when did the confederacy end?)
2. An extra punishment levied for a felony.
#1 is irrelevant due to amnesty and the fact that every confederate official is dead.
#2 is relevant to anyone convicted of insurrection and only those, unless both the text of Constitution and context it was written (reverence for Magna Carta) means nothing.
Nor does the 14th amendment claim there is one. But it barred Stephens from serving in congress, because he had “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against [the constitution] or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof”, even though he had not been charged with or convicted of same.
For the purpose of A14.3 they are the same thing; otherwise Stephens would not have been barred from congress.
I assume you mean state office, since states can’t ban murderers from running for federal office. Sure you can, if the relevant law says “committed’, rather than “convicted”. It would be up to him to sue and prove that he is qualified, by whatever standard of proof state law says is applicable.
Magna Carta isn’t law, either in the UK or here. The US founders implemented the principle you refer to in the 5th amendment, which provides that “nor shall any person … be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law”. Being disqualified from congress deprives a person of none of those three things, so the 5A does not apply.
No, you don’t. Did you bother reading the thing before commenting? There are not two disqualifying conditions; there is only one: Having once taken an oath, in any of a list of capacities, to support the constitution, and subsequently having “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof”. That is it.
That is the clause that disqualified Stephens, and the same exact clause would disqualify Cawthorn had he broken his congressional oath in the way specified, and had congress not removed the disqualification. Since he didn’t and it did, the question doesn’t arise.
Kamala Harris raised funds for a violent insurrection that saw the most property damage due to riots in the history of the Republic. Many of the people who were bailed out in those efforts went on to commit even more serious felonies including rape & murder. Why weren’t these same people trying to disqualify her in 2020?
In what court was Cawthorn convicted of the crime of Insurrection? Seems to me that if there have been no charges filed, then they are making libellous claims.
No, they are not. Accusing someone of committing a crime does not require that he be convicted of it. It is not libel to write that OJ murdered his wife and her lover.
It’s not even libel to write that George Zimmerman murdered Trayvon Martin, since it is a fact that he killed him, and whether any killing was murder is a matter of opinion, not of fact. It is libel to assert false facts about the killing that would persuade a reader that it was murder, such as that Zimmerman attacked Martin. But if you don’t misstate the facts, but merely opine that the facts as known add up to murder and the jury got it wrong, that is not libel.
In this case there are several elements. To assert that the riot was an insurrection is an opinion, so it can’t be libelous. To assert that Cawthorn actually participated in it is a factual statement, and it’s false, and therefore it would be libelous were he not a public figure. But to assert that his speech beforehand amounted to participation for the purpose of section 14.3 is an opinion, and therefore can’t be libelous.
All of which is irrelevant since the 1878 amnesty allows even convicted insurrectionists to serve in Congress.
hoped to at least get to question Mr. Cawthorn under oath
IOW, lawfare. If they get him to “recant” under oath, they can hold that against him. If they get him to support his statement, they can use that against him.
I do think it’s rather silly the judge used this maneuver instead of just stating that no one has been convicted of insurrection, so there’s no actual violation of the 14th Amendment. That would have been nice for squashing this carp thoroughly.
No, it’s not silly, because a conviction is not required to disqualify someone under 14.3A, just as a conviction is not required to disqualify someone for being too young, or not having been a citizen for long enough, or not living in the state he seeks to represent. Had there been no amnesty, and had the riot been an insurrection, and had Cawthorn participated in it, then he would be disqualified even if he were never charged. In fact under the Speech and Debate clause he probably couldn’t be charged, even if all of those conditions were true, but he’d still be disqualified. Of course in reality none of them are true, but the judge went with the easiest one: there was an amnesty, therefore what actually happened is irrelevant. Even if he had been convicted of insurrection he’d still be eligible.
Pay attention, Milhouse:
If there have been NO convictions for insurrection (and nothing like a civil war) then there was no insurrection of which he could be a part. That would have been the better judgment, IMO, instead of what I think of as a weak “He had amnesty.” It would have killed the whole talking point – which is what the lawfare folks were aiming for.
That is just not true. You give away the plot the moment you write “(and nothing like a civil war)”. By doing so you admit that convictions are not required. So what makes “something like a civil war” different? If the Capitol riot were an insurrection (it was not), it would still be one even if nobody were charged with anything. CHAZ was an insurrection, even though nobody was charged. So was the attack on the Portland courthouse, and so are all the coordinated violent attacks on ICE. A good case can be made that the entire BLM movement is an insurrection. And that’s true even though nobody has been charged with it, and it would still be true even if nobody had been charged with anything.
Being an insurrectionist means by definition you have been convicted of that crime, just like being a murderer means you have been convicted of murder, or being a bank robber means you have been convicted of that crime.
You have a lot of trouble with some of the most basic concepts of American law.
No, Danny, it doesn’t. It didn’t in the 1860s and it doesn’t now.
Stephens was an insurrectionist, despite never having been charged or convicted. That is what he was barred for, until congress decided to remove the bar, whereupon he was promptly elected again. I don’t understand where you got the idea that he was barred for something other than having “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” or having “given aid and comfort” to the constitution’s enemies.
And OJ is a murderer, despite not having been convicted. He can’t be deprived of life, liberty, or property for having done the murders, but the fact remains that he did them.
Well, technically, the South were separatists, not insurrectionists. They had no wish, desire, or intent to unseat the government of the United States. They just wanted out of the union, not to take it over and remake it in their own image.
I’m beginning to think American history is not your strong suit, Milhouse? You have some super strong suits, but this isn’t one. Maybe just give this one up at this point. After all, the Cawthorn suit is unlikely to continue (very unlikely), so we can all jump back on this fun fun bandwagon clown car the next time the Dems pull this stunt (and they will; they can’t win elections, so their best bet is to just disqualify their opponents. An old Obama trick.).
Fuzzy, if that were the case then the amendment would not have achieved its primary goal, which was to prevent Stephens and similar people from being elected to congress. They were disqualified because they had sworn an oath to support the constitution, and then they had engaged in “insurrection or rebellion” against it, or had “given aid or comfort to its enemies”. And that’s what the people who brought this suit falsely alleged Cawthorn had done.
As for who knows American history better, just consider that you thought Stephens spent his post-war years as governor of Georgia, when in fact he only held that position for the last 4 months of his life, after having first been elected to the senate, been refused his seat, had the constitution amended to bar him, then had the bar lifted, and then served in the house for 9 years.
I think this ruling will be overturned if it is appealed, because the Amnesty Act was written entirely in the present tense. It removed political disabilities from all persons who had them, with listed exceptions, but did not remove disabilities from persons who did not yet have them.
That’s not what it says. It says “all political disabilities imposed by the third section of the fourteenth article of amendments of the Constitution of the United States are hereby removed from all persons whomsoever, except….”. All persons whomsoever means everyone, past, present, and future.
This was not a pardon, which by definition can only be for past offenses; it was a “removal”. Amendment 14.3 says “Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each house, remove such disability”, so it did.
In any case, even if there were no amnesty Cawthorn would still be eligible because (1) the riot was not an insurrection, and (2) he didn’t participate in it.