Representative Jamie Raskin criticized the Supreme Court for punting on a case involving Trump’s disqualification from the ballot, stating that Congress should enforce Section Three of the 14th Amendment.
He plans to work on legislation with colleagues to address insurrection and disqualification issues.
“The, court didn’t exactly disagree with it. They just said that they’re not the ones to figure it out. 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. I disagree with that interpretation just because the other parts of the 14th Amendment are self executing,” Raskin said.
“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. But any event, the Supreme Court punted and said, it’s up to Congress to act,” he said.
He added, “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. The question is whether speaker Mike Johnson would allow us to bring this to the floor of the House?”
Raskin believes the Court avoided addressing the true meaning and intent of the 14th Amendment’s Section Three.
“Obviously the Supreme Court did not want to step up to the plate and deal with the clear textualist meaning of Section Three of the 14th Amendment, much less did they want to deal with the original purposes of Section Three of the 14th Amendment, which was to keep off of keep out of federal office, people who had already proven themselves disloyal and untrustworthy,” he said.
