There are two ways to apply the disqualification clause of the 14th. Am expansive application or a narrow application. An expansive application would disqualify anybody who used or plotted to use force on Jan 6 to overthrow the 2020 election. But it could also be used against anybody who used force to resist a governmental authority. How far does a person have to go down the path of resisting authority before they can be barred from ever holding a public office? Unless there are new charges, Trump will not be convicted of insurrection or seditious conspiracy. He will quite possibly be convicted of a conspiracy to violate civil rights, a conspiracy to defraud the government, the corrupt obstruction of an official proceeding and a conspiracy to carry out such obstruction, "unlawfully conspired" to change the election outcome, false claims of election fraud and solicitation of violation of oath. Are these crimes sedition? They don't seem to fit the definition in common English:
Sedition
- conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the authority of a state or monarch.
If those action are sedition, would they then be applied to anybody convicted of them? What else should also apply?
Do you see where I'm going with this? There is opportunity for abuse in the broad application of sec 3 of the 14th.
In a narrow application, the disqualification clause of the 14th was written to bar men who served in the Confederacy and violated earlier oaths to serve as officers in an army in a war against the Constitution and the Union of the United States. The Civil War had ended but those who had served in the Confederate Army were not to be trusted with the levers of power in the post war government. Preventing that was clearly the intent behind the disqualification clause when it was written. What we are now contemplating is extending this clause into a broader application.
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These are issues that need to be weighed and thought through. I don't think you are wrong in what you say, just saying that we need to take this step carefully and with good reason. It might be better that we don't take this step. Unintended consequences and all that.