Santos found a complete and consistent set of axioms for all mathematics.
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He already kinda looks like Fred Armisten
I was thinking 1990s-era Al Franken would have worked too.
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Generally, yes, but in the case of lying about your job history, no. Lots of people do that, and lots of people get away with it. And even when they don’t, lying about your job history is not a crime for anyone, not just politicians. Actually, lying in general is not a crime. The only time it is is when you are testifying under oath. In all other situations, feel free to lie all you want without feeling like you’re in danger of being arrested for it.
Now, would ordinary people like you and me be fired if we were caught lying on our resumes? Likely, yes. But now here we’re back to who has the power to fire Santos. Only the House of Representatives has the power to fire Santos because he lied to voters about his history. And that’s all on the GOP at the moment.
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Well, sorta. If he was never actually eligible and lied about it in his paperwork, a federal court could remove him. That’s what the DoJ is working on, along with financial crimes, IIRC.
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Right. That goes back to the investigation I mentioned in the earlier comment. That’s not going to happen quickly.
Kevin McCarthy and the GOP could fire him today, if they were so inclined. Democrats would certainly go along with it, so you know they’d have the votes. This is what’s pissing me off about this. This is the easiest PR win for McCarthy and the GOP that is likely to land in their lap for the next two years. Now, I realize it would trigger a special election in a district that has a very slight Democratic majority, so McCarthy and the rest of the GOP don’t want to risk losing that seat to a Democrat. But that’s a stupid concern. They have a slim majority now. Worst case scenario, that would make it one vote slimmer, but they would still have a majority. McCarthy’s hold on the Speakership is tenuous either way because of the deals he made to get the Speakership. Losing that one seat isn’t going to make his hold on the job any weaker. Besides, George fucking Santos won that election in November. It’s not like it’s a lock that a Democrat would win a special election there. In fact, had McCarthy and the GOP responded immediately when all this broke, and demanded his resignation, I think there was a good chance a Republican wins as long as they were relatively innocuous. It might be too late, now. Now the Democrats can score political points out of the reluctance of the GOP to do anything. All McCarthy had to do when the story broke was publicly say, “This is unacceptable. George Santos must resign,” and privately pull that jackhole into a coat closet and give him a choice: resign or face an embarrassing likely unanimous vote to expel him from the House. I truly don’t understand how McCarthy thinks he and the GOP benefit from Santos here. I really don’t.
There’s two reasons why McCarthy would keep YoSaffBridge around:
The first is timing. McCarthy is in a reverse race against the clock. Will the fallout from Jan.6 hit the House before the end of the 118th Congress? It could, and his margin is much slimmer than the number of GOP reps who were directly involved in the Trumpsurrection. As they get removed under 14A, sec3, he needs every rep he can get to hold off catastrophe.
Second, his caucus makes cat herding look relaxing and orderly. Keeping YoSaffBridge around means there’s one rep who he fucking owns. Every vote, every time.
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That’s an appropriate Firefly reference, but I always liked YoSaffBridge, so I don’t really like it, lol.
I will be pleasantly surprised if any Congresscritters are removed from office under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. Enforcing that provision would require Congress itself to enforce it. Since the end of the civil war, the only time it has been used was in 1919 to keep Socialist Victor Berger of Wisconsin from taking his seat, since he had been convicted of espionage. Eventually, his conviction was overturned and he was allowed to take office. As the GOP currently holds the majority…well…they aren’t going to enforce that clause. It is possible that if Democrats sued to force insurrectionists out of office, a judge might rule in their favor. However, that would almost certainly end up in the Supreme Court, and you know how that would end.
ETA: What I’m saying with that last paragraph is that I doubt very seriously if that’s something McCarthy is at all worried about.
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That doesn’t make any sense. Congress already had the power to remove it’s own members; it didn’t need a constitutional amendment to give it authority to do so. In contrast, charges brought by the Executive (DoJ) and a ruling by the Judicial branch is more than adequate, appropriate, and precedented.
As for SCOTUS, well there isn’t really a Constitutional question to be answered, but that certainly hasn’t stopped them from sticking their noses in where they don’t belong. Point taken.
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Tom Suozzi could run for the seat again in a special election. It only flipped 'cause he couldn’t both hold the seat and run for governor in the primary.
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The issue is that the amendment itself doesn’t specify how that clause is to be invoked or enforced. It just says that no one can hold office who has engaged in insurrection or rebellion. It also neglects to define insurrection, which is another issue I didn’t even bring up before. Anyway, the Constitution does this a lot: says something can’t happen or must happen but then fail to specify how. So…after this amendment was passed initially, Congress subsequently passed a law giving themselves the authority to enforce it. That was the Enforcement Act of 1870. Most of that was repealed in 1948. The Confiscation Act of 1862, which is still in effect, also prohibits insurrectionists from holding office, but again doesn’t really define terms or specify how.
So…let’s say, for the sake of argument, that a current sitting member of the House is convicted of some crime connected to January 6. How would one invoke that clause of the 14th Amendment? Well…it’s unclear. And that’s why I say Congress would have to do it. That would be the easiest way. Another way would be through the courts. That would mean filing a lawsuit against the Representative in question, claiming that Rep. Insurrector isn’t qualified according to the 14th Amendment and asking the court to remove him from office. This happened recently in New Mexico. A District Court judge barred Couy Griffin, former Otero County Commissioner, from holding office for life because of his involvement in Jan. 6. That lawsuit was brought by three New Mexico residents against Griffin. So…that could happen with the US Congress, too. And, depending on the District, I could see the trial court judge finding that Rep. Insurrector was ineligible. He would then appeal. Maybe the appeals court affirms the lower court ruling. He appeals again, this time to SCOTUS. And SCOTUS is going to rule 6-3 that Jan. 6 was not an insurrection.
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So, logically, it wouldn’t involve a mechanism that already exists, or why have the amendment at all? Congress already has the ability to expell a member. What scenario does that fail to cover? Maybe something like, I don’t know, if the majority in the current congress are the insurrectionists or enablers thereof. That’s where the Executive and Judicial branches get to use their checks and balances.
14A,sec3 also covers removal, not just ineligibility.
Yes, I get what you’re saying about SCOTUS. I’m not 100% - Roberts and Gorsuch are big into rules - but considering it shouldn’t even be their call, I agree that they aren’t going to shift the balance of the House with it.
Correct. Article I, Section 5 says, among other things, “Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.” The intent of the Section 3 of the 14th Amendment was to mandate removal of an official who participated in the Civil War, really. But they wrote it generically so it could apply to future rebellions and insurrections. But enforcement is provided for in Section 5. That says, “The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.” (emphasis mine). And, as I said in an earlier comment, they accomplished that initially through the 1870 Enforcement Act, which has since been mostly repealed. Currently, there is no legislation that unambiguously provides for enforcement of Section 3.
Look, is all of this bullshit? You bet it is. Welcome to Constitution Law. I took two semesters covering this crap in law school, and it’s all bullshit, and it’s always been all bullshit. That class disillusioned me so much I wished I could buy an island and just go build my own country from scratch. I doubt if there are ever any efforts to expel any member of Congress over Jan 6, but if there are, I predict this will be the holding from the majority of SCOTUS: Section 3 of the 14th Amendment was intended to apply to Congressmen from former Confederate States who had actually participated in the Civil War on the side of the Confederacy and only that. They will declare that Section 3 is moot because the Civil War is long in the past and all the participants are long dead. They will say that Congress is still free to expel any member it wants under Article I, Section 5.
On the bright side, you now know what a “curtilage” is.
If only they would apply the same degree of “originalism” to the Second Amendment.
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Oh God, don’t even get me started on Crim Pro.
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I give the people who drafted it much more credit than that. In the aftermath of the Civil War, they surely had the realization that it could happen again and needed mechanisms in place to deal not just with the immediate situation but with future insurrections and attempted rebellions.
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The old school radical republicans weren’t no dummies!
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Congress also created the Department of Justice during Reconstruction in order to essentially put enforcement of the 13A, 14A, and 15A in the hands of the Executive Branch, which is much more responsive than requiring new legislation every time some entity violated them.
