“Removing a candidate from the ballot under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment is not something my office takes lightly,” California’s Democratic secretary of state previously said.

  • @PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml
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    -116 months ago

    Since when do courts care about what the general public think

    That is one of the pillars of justice in a so-called democracy.

    • @NovaPrime@lemmy.ml
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      156 months ago

      Not at all. The courts are intended to be neutral arbiters of law itself. Congress is the body that should care about what people think.

      • @PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml
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        -166 months ago

        The law is open to interpretation since language is imprecise. Thinking that the law is some kind of rigid holy truth is extremely naive at best. Or at worst is fascist.

        • @NovaPrime@lemmy.ml
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          86 months ago

          I’m not disagreeing with that. I’m disagreeing with your assertion that courts should care about what the people think. If anything, when the law is ambiguous the courts look at the legislative session notes, speeches, drafts…etc to try and figure out what the original intent was (or throw it back to legislature to rework). I never said it’s some kind of rigid holy truth.

          • @PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml
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            -126 months ago

            Well the original intent of the insurrection clause was to prevent the same senators/congressmen who seceded and started the civil war from being eligible for federal office. This obviously doesn’t apply in Trumps case since there was no civil war and Trump was the lawfully elected president of the US at the time.

              • @PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml
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                -96 months ago

                It was responding to your original assertion.

                The courts are intended to be neutral arbiters of law itself

                Which in Trumps case has nothing to do with the original intent of the law (insurrection clause, since no insurrection has taken place.)

                As for my original assertion. The General Public is absolutely the folks the justice system should be accountable to, after-all government is supposed to be FOR the people. And if The People want to vote for someone who wants to overthrow the government, the courts have no business saying they can’t.

                So if you think the court shouldn’t care about the general public, then the insurrection clause doesn’t apply. If you think the court should care about the general public, then they have to let the voters decide.
                In either case Trump belongs on the ballot.