Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland said Monday House Democrats are “working” on legislation to disqualify former President Donald Trump as an insurrectionist.
The Supreme Court said that Congress alone had the power to enforce the “insurrection clause” of the 14th Amendment in an unsigned 9-0 ruling that overturned the Colorado Supreme Court’s Dec. 19 decision that Trump was disqualified under the provisions of the 14th Amendment. Raskin said that the 2021 impeachment of Trump over the Jan. 6, 2021 riotat the Capitol building could be the basis to do so.
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“It’s not going to be a matter for judicial resolution under section three of the 14th Amendment, but it’s up to Congress to enforce it,” Raskin told “Inside Politics” host Dana Bash. “I disagree with that interpretation just because the other parts of the 14th Amendment are self-executing, people can go to court and say that something violates equal protection, even if there‘s not a federal statute that allows them to do that.”
“In any event, the Supreme Court punted and said it‘s up to Congress to act, and so I am working with a number of my colleagues, including Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and Eric Swalwell, to revive legislation that we had to set up a process by which we could determine that someone who committed insurrection is disqualified by section three of the 14th Amendment and the House of Representatives already impeached Donald Trump for participating in insurrection by inciting it. So the House has already pronounced upon that, and there was also a 57 to 43 vote in the Senate,” Raskin continued. “The question is whether speaker Mike Johnson would allow us to bring this to the floor of the House.”
The Senate acquitted Trump on the charges stemming from the riot. Under Article I of the Constitution, two-thirds must vote to convict in order to remove an official via the impeachment process.
Special counsel Jack Smith secured a four-count indictment against Trump in August related to the former president’s efforts to challenge the results of the 2020 election, but did not accuse the former president of violating the federal insurrection statute.
Trump and his legal spokesperson Alina Habba did not immediately respond to requests for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Harold Hutchison on March 4, 2024
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