Congress: Don't Break Your Shiny New Oath
Congress won't block Trump, but they can still do this—
On Monday, a majority of Congress will certify the election of Donald J. Trump, a person who is clearly disqualified to serve in office according to Amendment 14, Section 3.
Fortunately for their consciences, by Monday, Congress will have had the whole weekend to forget the oath they just took on Friday to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic."
Despite a clear and explicit prohibition against government officials holding office again if they have betrayed their previous oath by engaging in an insurrection, nobody expects Congress to deny Trump’s certification. But the arguments for doing so are strong—even considering the Supreme Court ruling in Trump v. Anderson that kept Trump on the Colorado primary ballot..
I’d like to offer a modest proposal to keep Congress from breaking their new and still shiny oath.
Plan B: vote to remove the disqualification
Even if they’re unwilling to block Trump’s return to the White House, Congress can still acknowledge that his actions in sending a mob to the Capitol to overturn the 2020 election are, nonetheless, disqualifying. All they need to do is follow the last sentence of Section 3, which says, “Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability."
If they won’t make any effort to apply the disqualification, Congress can, instead, explicitly act to remove it. At least they’ll get the truth of Trump’s disqualification into the record and, maybe even into the lede paragraph of his obituary.
Is anyone brave enough to put such a motion on the floor?
Perhaps one of the returning members of the January 6th Committee: Reps Bennie Thompson Zoe Lofgren, Pete Aguilar, Jamie Raskin, or now Sen. Adam Schiff.
Perhaps the returning House managers of Trump’s second impeachment: Reps. Joaquin Castro, Madeleine Dean, Diana DeGette, Ted Lieu, Joe Neguse, Stacey Plaskett, or Eric Swallwell.
Perhaps one of the other outspoken members: Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jasmine Crockett, or Pramila Jayapal.
Perhaps Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse.
Perhaps someone from Senate or House leadership, or even the venerable Speaker Emerita, Nancy Pelosi.
Of course, I’m not holding my breath that the 14th Amendment, Section 3 will enter the procedings in any way. But a girl can dream, can’t she?
Would that we lived in a sane, moral country led by those who, on a daily basis. lived up to their oaths of office. Sad that we do not, and that instead we live in one where we've come to expect this abdication of responsibility and dereliction of duty.
Not gonna happen when this is allowed on Sunday show after coverage of two Texans murdering people during their suicides.
"Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator from South Carolina who is a leading Trump loyalist, said he would vote for all the president-elect’s nominees. “Do them now, do them quick, get them all done,” he told Fox News’s Sunday Morning Futures. “We are under attack here – we are at war.”
Graham added that what he called the “broken border” was a “national security nightmare”.
“Every day we don’t shut down that border is another day for terrorists to come in,” Graham said."