@jonnix @politics

Interesting. How could congress ever enforce this under 14A,s5?

@barney @politics

Yep that so makes sense to me now. Thanks! Seems like a petty bad decision then.

@barney @politics

Sorry, just read 14A, sec 5:

> The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

The decision seems pretty predictable to me then.

In fact it seems that this was never going anywhere and that the provisions are actually pretty weak. If an insurrectionist is popular enough to be a plausible presidential candidate, then they’re not unlikely to have significant support in congress.

@barney @politics

Were there not conversations at the time about how 14A would have been enforced? None of the issues around that are new and would have been obvious at the time.

@barney @politics

Who should enforce it then? Seems like exactly the sort of thing a court wouldn’t want to touch so as not to look too political, no?

Unless there’s no way around the fact that the 14th effectively creates a “constitutional crime” within federal courts’ jurisdiction that can be pardoned by a congress super majority, which would have been my intuitive reading.