Is Your Elected Official an Insurrectionist? Disqualify Them

Democrats - yet again - missed a golden opportunity to finally educate the American public about how it can use the Constitution's 14th Amendment, Section 3

Publisher’s Riff

Had it been an angry, violent “mob” of Democrats, especially with armed Black people, who attacked and breached the U.S. Capitol, Republicans would have unleashed a torrent of legal and police powers unlike anything we’ve seen since the beginning and the end of the Civil War. The insurrectionists would have been held immediately accountable. It would have been a swift and decisive response, done at all costs, and even done in such a way where the law was either defied, circumvented or bent to meet the demands of outraged White Republican, White Evangelical and White Independent voters. The energy would be akin to that found during nine months of bloody guillotine execution during the 18th century’s French Revolution. It is highly likely that such a Democratic Party-led “coup d’etat” (make no mistake about it, media would have no hesitation calling it a “coup,” unlike their reluctance to do so now) would have also been met with swift and lethal response from every law enforcement and military apparatus in the nation’s Capitol. There would have been much bloodletting that day.

And, if the shoe were on the other foot, Republicans - always claiming themselves to be strict adherents to the Constitution - would have immediately sought to hold supporting Democratic elected officials accountable by invoking, at its fullest, the 14th Amendment’s Section 3, which reads ….

… and they would do so knowing, correctly, that this is what the 14th Amendment was designed for. That it was specifically designed for a moment like this when coup-planners and terrorists actively attacked the seat of government in a brazen attempt to overturn legitimate election results and to maintain a tyrannical grip on power.

The shoe, currently, is on the foot of Democrats … and there’s absolutely nothing. They are led by President Biden, and they are all too mired in their own incompetence, frozen by fear and fooled by empty calls for “bipartisanship” to boldly invoke this law. The first year anniversary of January 6th should have been spent educating a weary American public on this provision and triggering a new political offensive holding those elected officials who planned, supported, instigated and carried out that attack on the Capitol accountable. Americans, with true justice on their side, should be overwhelming the mailboxes, the inboxes, the social media accounts, the phone lines and the offices of Secretaries of State and other elections officials.

So far, based on media accounts, we know of, officially, nearly two dozen state and local Republican elected officials who participated in that coup that day. From Huffington Post ….

At least 21 state and local Republican officials attended the Jan. 6 rally in Washington, D.C., that turned into a violent riot, according to a new HuffPost tally, many of whom are now under pressure to resign.

They traveled from 16 different states, arriving for the “Stop the Steal” demonstration on the White House Ellipse, where they watched President Donald Trump tell incendiary lies about having been robbed of reelection. He then told the crowd of thousands to march on the Capitol.

In the crowd that day were 13 members of state Houses or Assemblies; three state senators; a county commissioner; a city council member; a GOP congressional district chair; a district director; and a co-chair of the Michigan Republican Party. The group also includes a QAnon conspiracy theorist; a self-described member of a fascist militia; and a man who once declared that “the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat.”

A more recent report from Rolling Stone magazine revealed high-level coup planning with specific Members of Congress …

These two sources also helped plan a series of demonstrations that took place in multiple states around the country in the weeks between the election and the storming of the Capitol. According to these sources, multiple people associated with the March for Trump and Stop the Steal events that took place during this period communicated with members of Congress throughout this process. 

Along with Greene, the conspiratorial pro-Trump Republican from Georgia who took office earlier this year, the pair both say the members who participated in these conversations or had top staffers join in included Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.), Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), and Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas).

According to 14.3 in the Constitution, why are any of these Members still planning to appear on ballots in 2022 if they’ve already been disqualified? That list is massive: It could also include the dozens upon dozens of Republican state legislators who continue to create chaos by trying to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 elections and who are presently engaged in numerous forms of legislative insurrection.

This publication’s Senior Editor has been focused on the activation of the 14th Amendment, Section 3 since long before that attack, as far back as 2019, warning the public that an insurrection was already well underway during the presidency of Donald Trump. There were already signs of treasonous behavior and criminal contempt for the Constitution and, therefore, more than enough evidence to have supported a movement to remove Trump from the ballot in 2020. That warning was met with silence and, in some cases, belligerent dismissal.

Two years later, advocacy group Free Speech for People, led by noted Constitutional lawyer John Bonifaz, launched its “14point3” campaign to activate the 14th Amendment Section 3 against Republican state, local and federal elected officials who were known coup plot planners and participants. “This provision in the Constitution is so timely and applicable to what happened on Jan. 6th,” Bonifaz explained to WURD’s Reality Check recently. "It was placed there precisely to deal with the Confederates. For example, half the Tennessee Supreme Court was removed during the years immediately following the Civil War.”  

“We’ve issued letters to chief election officials in all 50 states,” said Bonifaz. Have they answered? Silence.

Democrats should have spent all day educating the American public on #Jan6th about how they can push Secretaries of State and other election officials to disqualify coup participants from running. Instead, they were busily getting defensive about their utter lack of offense - from Attorney General Merrick Garland to not passing voting rights to the sloth-moving January 6th Committee - and shaking hands with architects of the modern political far-right, such as former Vice President Dick Cheney, in the name of fake national unity.

But, there is no national "unity" without accountability. Rightfully so, people want coup organizers punished and prevented from doing this again. If the shoe were on the other foot, if Democrats attacked the Capitol, best believe Republicans would be activating 14A, Section 3.

All of January 6th could have been used to revive some public confidence in the government’s ability to hold coup-participants accountable and to actually fight for democracy. Democrats in the Capitol and in multiple states should have been calling out the dozens of Republican state, local and federal lawmakers who helped organize the 1/6 coup and demanding, publicly, that Secretaries of State and other election officials disqualify them, and Trump, from ever running again. For example: We shouldn't even be having a conversation or speculative debate about whether Trump runs in 2024. No: We should be discussing how he is disqualified from running on any ballot pursuant to 14.3.

A major 1/6 coup organizer, Pennsylvania State Senator Doug Mastriano is now running for Pennsylvania Governor in 2022. Citing 14A Section 3, why is he on a ballot? Where is the state’s Democratic Party leadership on this? Have they contacted state and local election administrators to begin the process of disqualifying him? Has media asked this question?

A 14.3 movement should be an immediate and key 50-state play. But, instead, Democrats spent all of 1/6 dropping cute quotes from the Founders and re-running show-tunes from a slave-chic era Broadway play. What they could be doing is actually using the document the Founders wrote.

This is not the moment for platitudes, endless complaints about what can't be done. We should be exhausting every avenue, every tool, every available legal mechanism to stop extremists, domestic terrorists, and coup planners. We are not doing what we need to do. Call or write your state and local election administrator today. Tell them to disqualify these insurrectionists from the ballot, based on the Constitution that tells us to do so. Let’s step up.