There’s lots of buzz right now about the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, with the focus on Section 3. Here’s the text for reference, broken into the three basic sections
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.
Most of the talk is about using this section to prevent Donald Trump from ever running for public office again. Normally, that prohibition is part of an impeachment vote. But, the 14th Amendment can be invoked separately, and only requires a simple majority to pass.
There is also some talk (not much) about using Section 3 against Congress-folk who helped incite the insurrection. It might be tough to prove that their ongoing lies and incendiary speeches were “engaging in insurrection.” But, since the purpose of the insurrection was to stop the functioning of government by force, there might be a possibility of removing those persons from Congress.
The Washington Post notes: “Others want to use the 14th Amendment against members of Congress who supported the baseless allegations that the election was stolen from Trump and the demonstrations that led to the deadly attack on the Capitol.”
But HERE’S the point of this article: I noticed that it also applies to elected officials at the STATE level: “or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state.”
If there is discussion of using Section 3 to remove Congress folks, what about also looking at our state legislators? Some possible questions for them to answer, in increasing levels of seriousness:
- Did this legislator claim publicly that there was widespread fraud in the election?
- Did this legislator claim publicly that the election was “stolen”?
- Did this legislator urge people to go to Washington on January 6th?
- If so, did the legislator use words like “fight” or “take our country back through force,” or something even more specific?
- Did this legislator help plan the rally that resulted in insurrection?
- Was this legislator privy to plans to storm the Capitol?
- Did this legislator help plan the storming of the Capitol?
I feel almost certain that a number of our Republican legislators did #1 and #2. I suspect some of them did #3 as well.
Numbers 4 through 7 seem to me to be the crux of the question. Number 4 verges on incitement, as does 5. Numbers 6 and 7, of course, would be the most damning.
Did any of our legislators, then, incite insurrection? It might be interesting to dig into their public statements on social media. Now that Parler has been downloaded and may be searchable, it might be even more interesting to dig through that.
At this point, I don’t have the time to do that digging. Perhaps someone else will.
But if I were one of our state legislators, and I had been out pushing the “stolen election” lie, or encouraging people to go to DC to “do what it takes to take our country back,” I’d be at least a little worried.
They pledged to support the Constitution, but didn’t when their side lost. The 14th Amendment could come back to bite them in the butt.
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