My local state representative, Jeff “Goose Poop” Backer*, was begging Minnesota to join in that ludicrous Texas lawsuit to invalidate the elections in 4 states that didn’t go the way Republicans wanted — you know, the lawsuit that collapsed yesterday.
Below is the letter I sent to our Attorney General stating our support of MN joining the Texas lawsuit. We must protect the integrity of this and all future elections to ensure your constitutional rights are protected. ~ Jeff
“Elections belong to the People.” ~ Abraham Lincoln
**********************************************************
Honorable Attorney General Ellison
I urge you to protect my constituent’s constitutional voting rights by joining the U.S. Supreme Court suit with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton against defendant states that violated the U.S. Constitution during the 2020 presidential election.
The actions of these states, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, have violated the election requirements of the Constitution resulting in an illegitimate vote of the Electoral College.
Again, I urge you to join suit with Texas AG Paxton to protect my Constituent’s constitutional rights. His lawsuit can be found here: https://www.scribd.com/…/TX-v-State-Motion-2020-12-07….
Sincerely
Jeff Backer, State Representative 12A
701-361-1909
I am amused at the Lincoln quote — his goal is to erase the voters in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. I guess their elections didn’t belong to them. They belonged to the Republican party.
The claim that their position is the constitutional one seems to be a common one among the Trumpers. I don’t get how they can say that about 50 lawsuits that have all been dismissed by multiple courts, some of which were even rejected by a Supreme Court that has been packed with Republican troglodytes?
This episode has revealed once again the motivated reasoning of Republicans. Only votes for their candidates are valid, everyone must march in lockstep behind their choice, even if it’s someone as hateful and incompetent as our soon-to-be ex-president.
*He earned the nickname by opposing legislation to limit agricultural runoff, blaming the poisons polluting our rivers on the fact that we’re on a major migratory flyway. It wasn’t herbicides and pesticides we needed to worry about, it’s all the goose poop! He’s awful.
(Sigh ). Makes me glad I don’t live in stupidityville!
Yep, there’s a whole lot of stupidity out there.
It’s The Onion’s headline: Area Man Passionate Defender Of What He Imagines Constitution To Be
Spinless cowhards, I see.
Only the votes for my candidate (The Republican one) should be counted. Otherwise I’ll lose my white privilege.
As the late (and missed) Ed Brayton pointed out repeatedly, treason is the one crime that has an actual definition in the Constitution:
Get back to me when the redhats start an actual shooting civil war. (I’ll allow as how that’s a possibility, but it hasn’t happened yet.)
Also, “enemies” are probably not just the party I don’t like.
That won’t be difficult a standard to meet if we do wind up in a civil war. 8-)
But now that my rant is over, I have to say that I agree with the general sentiment, although I’d call it sedition rather than treason.
In summary:
well, actually sedition…
Instead of “treason”, I think the proper term for what the Texas lawsuit and their supporters have done would be “sedition”, which is punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
Text of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States:
“No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress or … hold any office … under any State, who, having previously taken an oath … to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same…”, i.e. sedition.
Apparently, he has just one constituent.
Or he doesn’t understand apostrophes.
Both. As well as not understanding anything other than his wallet.
I don’t see how this even fits their own twisted logic. Here’s what the constitution says:
No state has overturned its own slate of electors. Therefore, the electors chosen are legitimate.
Once the electoral college votes for president-elect Biden, there is no conceivable constitutional objection, not that there is now. I am sure they will make up new shit though.
Is he one of those who attribute sea level rise to rocks dropping in the water?
Since the outcome of the election is now legally “locked in” -President Stomach Flu instead of President Ebola- I do not get how they think they can change things without burning the constitution an go full-on Machtubernahme.
@5 stuffin:
As they gleefully point out ours is a Republic, not a Democracy, so naturally only Republicans can rule…
@citizenjoe, #9:
GMTA.
The big question is, if in the modern era a state were to vote to secede from the Union, would the subsequent dissolution of the United States be peaceful, or would the Federal government be forced to go to war against the newly independent nation or nations on sedition charges?
The minority of people in seceding states who would still consider themselves to be US citizens would insist that they maintain the rights appertaining thereto. And precedent is well established from the civil rights era that no state or foreign power can strip those rights away from US citizens. Any Supreme Court would thus probably argue that the act of secession was unconstitutional — but of course, the new nation would no longer recognize the Supreme Court. So if they proceeded to do something awful (eg. “Black people can’t vote”), would the Federal government be able to just sit idly by?
Since Nixon at least. Before that the Dixiecrats and some principled and/or reasonable Republicans make it hard to say “Republican” is synonymous with Traitor. In the 50s, for example, I don’t think Ike was a traitor, but Senator McCarthy was.*
And while I think Goldwater was the definitive turning point, it takes at least a little time for turnover to happen.
*Clarification: I also don’t think it’s entirely synonymous with “traitor” at the level of the average voter. I’m talking about the high party officials & elected officers here.
A Democratic House member from New Jersey has proposed that the 126 House members who participated in this sedition, the attempt to overthrow a legal election and make Trump a dictator, not be seated in the House (apparently the House can decide who gets seated). He quoted one section of the constitution (which one, I’m sorry, I have forgotten) about people who try to overthrow the government not being seated.
Although, of course, it would cause revolt among the Trumpies, and less “trust in our institutions or government”, I personally think that that is the right course of action. They did try to overthrow the government.
My “very serious person” may be getting the better of me here, but I think that refusing to seat elected House members kind of undermines the big message, which is that what matters is the will of the voters.
Even if the constitution permits it, I just don’t think it’s the right approach. Some form of censure, I mean up to a requirement for public repudiation before they are allowed to be seated might work. I doubt anything like it will happen, unfortunately.
This is an asymmetric battle in which Republicans win (at least short term) by acting like maniacs. It doesn’t mean we can always apply the same strategy. (We shouldn’t rule it out either, but it’s complicated.)
@18
Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment:
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
@PaulBC: isn’t that the main argument made against impeachment? The voters made a choice and only they should remove him from office even if he is illegally using the power of that office.
@specialfrog:
Yeah, except the impeachment clause (Article I, Section 3, Clause 7) uses “high crimes & misdemeanors” which is vastly more broad than the language of the 14th which mirrors the Treason clause. In mirroring the treason clause, the strong implication is that someone has to actually do violence against the United States, if not make war upon them, and the legislators have to either participate in the violence or give direct support to the effort (“aid & comfort”) to those that do.
There’s a matter of intent here. The impeachment clause was intended to prevent a corrupt, untrustworthy person from maintaining power. If it applied to congresspersons, then it might be applicable here. The clauses addressing treason & insurrection / rebellion had an entirely different purpose. It wasn’t merely to prevent corruption or bad-faith dealing that was harmful to the country. It was to prevent someone who was actually waging war against the country to have a vote on the budget allocations that were being used to fight back.
The 14th is drastically more limited in scope and intent than the impeachment provisions.
I do think that some deference needs to be given to the will of the electorate unless and until some established law or constitutional provision dictates otherwise. The problem isn’t the idea that the will of the people needs to be given some deference. The problem is that Rs are rewriting the constitution to assert that no corruption is ever serious enough to impeach, if the president is Republican, no matter the actual wording or intent of the constitution’s Article 1, section 3.
We would be making an error similar in mental process (though seemingly opposite semantically) if we were to decide that any act against the interest of the country is serious enough to invoke the 14th no matter the actual wording of that amendment.
specialffrog@21 Impeachment is in the constitution and the intent seems to be to limit it “for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” (Though I hate the wording of the Constitution, because here’s another case where it does not say “only”. Maybe these are merely examples.) It doesn’t appear to be a general recall power. I agree with the grounds of Trump’s impeachment, however, and I think he committed an impeachable offense at least once a week in office. Trump’s global properties were a running quid pro quo. Treason is harder to establish, except right now he appears to be waging war against the US by attempting a self-coup, and there is plenty of time to impeach still and at least get the GOP Senate on record nullifying it. A “high crime” can be a lot of things. He has abused the power of office in numerous ways.
But I get your point, that just because the constitution says you can does not mean it is respecting the will of voters. As a personal judgment call, I would say that Trump should have been impeached many times over. But maybe not at the first impeachable offense he committed. I don’t think the impeachment of Bill Clinton was just, for example, even if he technically met the definition of perjury. It just wasn’t a matter of state. It was about a personal affair. (On the other hand, if he’s a serial rapist as seems more likely than ever, he probably should have been in jail, not the White House.)
So my stance is (not IANAL let alone a constitutional scholar) that maybe the constitution grants Pelosi the authority to refuse to seat these traitorous GOP representatives. If so, I just don’t think it’s the right approach right now. Given a pattern of such statements and continued incalcitrant behavior, it could be the only option. It’s just a drastic option. It does go against the voters, and that cost has to be weighed in.
@20 So how about this: the House passes a declaration that these representatives “have engaged in insurrection or rebellion” and then puts it up to a 2/3 vote to “remove such disability.”
The House puts it up to the Senate. If the GOP Senate refuses to acknowledge that there is a disability to remove, then the members are unseated on constitutional grounds.
Fantasy, yes, but here’s my point. I think the voters of East Bumfuck, Nebraska are entitled to someone who represents them, not me. So I really don’t want to see an entire slate of representatives unseated when by and large, they won fair elections. The game here isn’t the same as the Republican’s game of rigging the government apparatus by hook or by crook.
Still, I am imposed to impunity. I think there is some value to a symbolic display that would require the GOP senate either to acknowledge and forgive treason or at least go on record turning a blind eye.
@PaulBC, I think that’s kind of a good suggestion.
This dangerous action needs some real consequences, though, if anyone can think of how to impose any. As with toddlers (an apt analogy here) who are doing something dangerous, like, trying to put their hands on a hot stove burner, you must slap their hands right away to make them learn immediately not to do that again. You can’t just say “No, it’s better not to.” And, of course, you have to nip the behavior in the bud, the first time, and not wait for years.
They did try to overthrow the government, though the actual article of the constitution doesn’t actually apply, now that I see it. But then, why should people who tried to overthrow the government still have votes on how money is allocated, etc.? Would they not try to destroy the government again, in blocking needed measures or advancing ones that will lead to disaster?
So, apparently McConnell’s strategy is now to wreak the most economic and pandemic suffering possible onto all citizens, so that the Biden administration will look, or be, unsuccessful, and so that the republicans will win in 2022 and 2024.
There has to be some real reason for the party not to try this again. In Minnesota, apparently lawsuits were brought after this election to contest the wins, on the grounds of illegality, of every democratic senate and house member (don’t know whether that’s state or national). Even in districts where the democrat won by 30 points, a landslide.
Anyway, if anyone can think of some sanction for these seditious members and AG’s that has serious consequences, that’s what’s needed.
@ billseymour, #6
The very part of the Constitution you quote says:
Emphasis mine. It doesn’t say that treason requires them to start shooting. Persons engaged in a conspiracy with the clear intent of forcibly overthrowing the lawfully elected government of the United States are guilty of treason, even if they never get so far as to actually pulling the trigger. That they’re making the attempt is enough.
vucodlak@26 I agree. A coup, whether successful or not, military or judicial, bloody or bloodless is an attempt to overturn a lawfully elected government and very clearly an act of war.
By the time you let them succeed, they’ve already won the war and nullified the constitutional means to accuse them of treason. Nobody should ignore this coup attempt just because it seems incompetent. If I show up at a bank with a pea shooter and serious intent, it’s still armed robbery. (And if I was Black, I would be very unlikely to make it out of that situation alive.)
Isn’t this an obvious result of the post-factual world we live in? They simply choose a world view they believe to be advantageous. And as ludicrous as their claim might seem, we all laughed when Trump announced his candidacy.
Maybe I’m just old-fashioned, but I was taught that when proposing a course of action it is both necessary and considerate to back it up by summarising the evidence favouring that action. Failing to support one’s argument with evidence and reason, leaving even well-disposed recipients to attempt to work it out for themselves, is unlikely to lead to success.
It is an assertion without proof or data and may be dismissed without proof or data.
The right wingnuts and fundie xians do this often.
It’s what you do when you’ve got nothing in the way of proof.
After the primaries with Clinton and Biden, and the subsequent campaigns in which they demonstrated themselves to be awful rightward-leaning buffoons who were incapable of connecting to the public, and the way Biden is building a team made almost entirely of lobbyists and right-wingers, this sentence makes me laugh, then sigh, because Democrats are doing exactly the same thing, and far enough into denial to be unable to recognize the fact.
I do have a degree of trepidation in regarding, regardless of how wildly outlandish the claims, treating the right of redress as sedition. What other rights would then become weaponized and used against the populace?
Indeed, we weaponized free speech and hobbled the free press via the Alien and Sedition Act, which also blunted reporting and response to the 1918 influenza pandemic. The common name being the Spanish Influenza Pandemic purely by virtue of the fact that only Spanish press stories were accurately reporting about the pandemic.
Thankfully, the prevailing view today is that the act is unconstitutional. But, we did retain the Alien Enemies Act, which Trump leveraged with his “Muslim ban”.
Weaponizing rights is beyond dangerous!
Vicar (ye):
Right. And Trump refers to them as the radical socialists.
(What makes you imagine you’re any more credible than he?)
@31
The 81 million votes for Biden came from people by and large aware of this, assuming they had been paying attention at all. That includes establishment voters who are OK with it and progressive voters who understood how much worse it would be to elect Trump.
So in short, gimme a break. When the general election comes around it is virtually always down to two choices. The last election where it theoretically might not have been was 1992. Biden is the choice of the voters in both the ordinary sense and in the Alice-in-Wonderland framework of the electoral college. Whether you like him or not, it is anti-democratic to overturn this result.
How many years did it take The Vicar to get over that Hillary had lost? How many more do you think it will take him to get over Trump’s loss?
@#33, John Morales:
Well, for a start, I’m actually looking at their well-documented histories. Like the way retired general Lloyd Austin, Biden’s pick to run the Pentagon, is actually on the board of of directors for Raytheon and Nucor. I’m sure that bodes well for cutting the bloated military budget! Or there’s Neera Tanden, who is so strongly of the opinion that the Iraq War was okay that — according the New York Times — she punched somebody for asking Hillary Clinton about it in 2008, and who loves corporate profits so much that she was one of the key architects of the private-profits-protecting ACA, not to mention her attempt to casually out somebody who accused somebody at her think tank of sexual harassment. It’s true that she didn’t make the Hitler tweet, but frankly she didn’t have to. Or there’s his nomination of one of the descendants of the jackass Cuban refugees — the ones who made the Communist revolution possible by treating the poor so badly that the poor were actually galvanized into action — who have poisoned American politics for more than half a century for the head of DHS. (Frankly, what we need is to dismantle DHS and prosecute most of the higher-ups in it, not try to put more lipstick on that pig of a department.) Every one of his high-profile nominees is somebody I wouldn’t trust to manage a Denny’s, let alone to run the government. (Which isn’t surprising, because I feel the same way about Biden himself.)
@#35, microraptor:
At least keep your stupidity consistent, okay? The complaint has always been that I was glad Hillary lost. Still am; she remains a terrible person who would be twice as smart as she actually is if she were half as smart as she thinks she is. Unfortunately, her loss came at the heavy expense of a Trump win, but we were all going to suffer either way, so I took pleasure where I could find it. This time, I get to be glad Trump won — but now we’re going to suffer from the idiot Biden and his willful refusal to even try to fix anything.
Re: The VIcar @ #36…
I would say that the bigger problem with Gen. Austin as Sec. of Defense is that it violates the principle of civilian control of the military.
Vicar@36 Here’s the thing. You will never get a US president even close to your standards, and your entire approach makes it more likely we will have someone worse than another who is at least attainable.
I was proud to have Barack Obama as my president, though his tangible accomplishments were limited after losing congress in 2010. That was also in large part his fault. But still, I am not sure what circumstances would have led to anything better. Mostly, I just liked his professorial communication style, comprehension of 21st century culture, Hawaiian pluralist perspective, and the fact that he can actually write very well. A very good man largely wasted by circumstances.
A much larger initial stimulus package would have been a good idea with the understanding that a congressional loss in 2010 could happen, and that the best way to avoid it would be a fast recovery not a sluggish one. This is clear in hindsight, but it still may not have been attainable given Democratic “moderates” in congress. Being utterly blindsided by the astroturf “Tea Party” and getting gerrymandered in a census year probably was avoidable, but you can’t lay all that on Obama.
As for Hillary Clinton.
Uh, OK, Riddler. You think she believes she’s four times as smart as she is. Any evidence for this assertion? I think she’s quite intelligent among national level politicians (which includes the likes of Sen. James Inhofe). Hillary Clinton never struck me as anything but hardworking and informed. I’m not a mindreader. Thus it is impossible to make valid comparison to her self-assessment of intelligence. If I were going to hazard a guess, I would say that a lot of men find her threatening simply because she’s forthright about what she does know.
I would have preferred a 3rd term for Obama. Let’s be clear. The purpose of the 22nd amendment was to ensure no Democrat would be as successful as FDR, and not some higher principle. I see no reason not to keep putting the same candidate up for president. The advantage of incumbency is not as great as assumed, and many people want the job.
But that wasn’t an option. I was looking forward to Clinton at least in the sense of having any president would could veto GOP bills and keep FedSoc judges off of SCOTUS. Sanders, needless to say, would have done. A big rubber stopper in the door of the Oval Office would have done. By not getting behind any alternative to any Republican nominee most of the damage Trump has done was a predictable outcome (though his election denial is a new thing of his own making).
Fortunately, we didn’t make the same mistake a second time. And Biden is a much worse choice than Clinton, who is smarter and would have been more likely to institute effective mainstream liberal policies. So look, congrats. I mean if your goal was to fuck everything up for four years, you did it it. Hooray! But maybe people have noticed this is a not a big win after all. The “sheeple” didn’t wake up. We’re back to where we would be with an establishment president, lost ground, and a weaker starting point than 12 years ago with Obama.
Vicar:
Nah, for a start, you’re making the false equivalence.
“Democrats are doing exactly the same thing”, you wrote.
If they were, wouldn’t that entail they’re also making (ahem) Vicarious claims in court over the states Trump won? ;)
So, they’re not just “awful rightward-leaning buffoons who were incapable of connecting to the public”, but they also lack any management skills. Every one of them.
Rabid right-wingers, they. Exactly the same as each of Trump’s appointees.
Mmmhmm.
All this in response to a comment about the other mob.
I do recall your assertion that “Biden is saying Dick Cheney is going to be a foreign policy advisor”.
I think we should all support Jeff Backer by sending him sex toys. We have to show him how much we support his cause.
@24
You are correct in regarding that this situation must be addressed as these cretins cannot be allowed to not answer for what they did.
It could be something as simple as when they get up to speak, the chair says ‘The chair recognizes the Seditionist from X.’
My option would be to not allow them to be seated and tell their governors to send 126 other GOP representatives in their stead. Further back this by stipulation that they can never again hold a seat in the House. If they want to run for Senate, fine. They can take it up with the voters of their states. It will effectively end most of their careers.
The full Lincoln quotation is quite good: “Elections belong to the people. It’s their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.”
Yes indeedy. After all, Biden only won about 12 million more votes than any candidate in any previous Presidential election, and scarcely beat Tump by more than a mere 7 million. Clear, undeniable proof that he was incapable of connecting to the public, obviously.
This “will of the people” thing doesn’t make sense.
Its saying a senator cannot be held accountable for sedition or treason because people voted for them. That makes anyone voted into office immune. Its irrational. What if the people that voted that person in are seditionists?
DanDare @44 As noted above, the 14th amendment provides a remedy:
So while it’s true that the “will of the people” does not nullify constitutional disqualifications, it sounds like the intent was to provide some discretion while setting a very high bar for it.
My view is that maybe (IANAL) 126 House Republicans engaged in sedition. If so, then they are disqualified from being seated. However, there is a means to reinstate them. I think that the cost to stability of removing so many members of congress is much greater than the cost of reinstating them explicitly if they are willing to accept the charge of sedition (or whatever, again IANAL).
The larger problem is that all of this is pure fantasy unless someone with any actual authority takes it up, which I find extremely unlikely. I am going to come out and admit that I’m not really interested in escalating an already serious crisis, and I believe that would be the effect of simply refusing to seat them.
Paul BC @38:
Thank you.
KG @43:
Vicar’s whole shtick of “The liberal who is truly dedicated to progressive causes is one who would rather see Trump in office, because Biden and Clinton are monsters no better than Stalin/Pol Pot/Palpatine” is as fucking idiotic as it is tiresome.
It’s not a coincidence, of course. The core of the conservative worldview is a way of finding an excuse to pretend that one is moral while having different rules for different people. The only question is how honest they can be with themselves and with us. Their beliefs matter, ours don’t, because ours are evil. Their vote matters, ours don’t. They are winners and thus have the right to have society function for them. We are the smaller fish.
@32: You make an assumption that is false: that the government needs to have an excuse to screw over dissidents. They don’t. They can use exactly the same reasoning we are articulating now, whether we used it or not. At some points facts need to matter to whether something is right or wrong.
@33: While I am nowhere near as hostile to you as other folks here, there are tons of ways that one can reframe what you’re saying if one is not convinced that we can basically instantly have a progressive society. For example, Neera helped to craft the ACA. That protected millions of folks. Was it Medicare for All? No, but the ACA was immediately called socialist. MfA would see massive elite resistance. You are allowing the good to be the enemy of the better.
Moreover, there is no point whatsoever right now in choosing cabinet picks that the Senate won’t pass. Thanks to Trump, he needs to get a cabinet going. The cabinet is not only great from a representation perspective, with lots of women and people of color, but people like Marcia Fudge have a pretty good voting record. Yeah, they’re all at best corporate Dems, and I would argue that he owes progressive Dems some picks, but he didn’t win just because of Justice Dems.
Frederic @47:
You sure you meant to address my #33? I’m not..