On August 17, the U.S. Supreme Court denied a request to intervene in the redistricting case for City Commission in Miami. The U.S. District Court had determined that the plan passed by the Commission violates the Voting Rights Act because it injured Latino voters, but the Eleventh Circuit had stayed the U.S. District Court order. The case is not over but the original districts will now be used for this year’s election. Grace v City of Miami, 23A116.
The Fourteenth Amendment says, “No person shall be a Senator or Representative to 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…to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same…But Congress may by a two-thirds vote of each House, remove such disability.”
When the Fourteenth Amendment was written, there were no government-printed ballots. Therefore, it is obvious that what the authors of the Fourteenth Amendment did not envision anyone stopping any voter from voting for anyone he wished to vote for. There would have been no enforcement mechanism to stop a voter from voting for someone who had “engaged in insurrection.” Instead, in the context of a presidential election, it is obvious that the intent of the Fourteenth Amendment was for Congress to decide in December of presidential election years whether to count the votes of any presidential elector who might have voted for an insurrectionist for President. The precedent was set in 1868 when Congress refused to count the vote of three presidential electors who had voted for Horace Greeley in the electoral college. Congress rejected these three votes because there were cast for a deceased person.
Here is a story from The Hill.
Here is a link to the Libertarian Party’s Ballot Access Symposium that was held on Saturday, August 19, 2023, at the Washington Hilton Hotel in Washington, DC. The event was moderated by longtime Libertarian Party candidate and activist Larry Sharpe, and the panelists were Nick Brana, Leader of the Movement for a People’s Party; Jim Clymer, National Chair of the Constitution Party; Diane Sare, Independent Candidate for US Senate from New York; and Angela McArdle, Chair of the Libertarian National Committee. I was a participant in the event. The video is 64 minutes long.
The Los Angeles Times has this article about likely challenges to the primary presidential ballot position of former President Donald Trump. Thanks to ElectionLawBlog for the link.
