14(3) The Insurrection Clause

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Amendment 14 Section 3, also known as the Insurrection Clause, was added to the Constitution after the Civil War. I disqualifies candidates for state or federal offices if they previously took an oath to support the Constitution when sworn into a public office but then engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States. It was the answer to what to do with former members of the Confederacy that rebelled against the United States. Before this, the only way to remove office holders of the US was through impeachment.

Realizing that allowing traitors to run for office and then impeaching them would be an untenable situation for a government, this section was added to automatically disqualify oath breaking traitors. The insurrection clause was originally intended to be self executing and immediately disqualified tens of thousands of former Confederate members that had been members of government before secession; not just every leader but every sheriff, every clerk, every local office holder in every town in the US. All ineligible.

The only way for a traitor to hold office again is for Congress to vote by a 2/3 majority to allow them to do so. To underscore the fact that the insurrection clause is self-executing, it wasn't until the Amnesty Act of 1972, passed by Congress with a required supermajority, that former Confederates were allowed to serve in office again.

But the Roberts' Supreme Court turned that concept on its head in Trump v Anderson.  Against all historical evidence and precedent, the justices undid the self executing requirement, aiding Trump and allowing him to stay on the ballot in Colorado. Now, they say that Congress must vote to disqualify candidates under the insurrection clause, ignoring the fact that they could already do that with impeachment.

But here's the small but important difference: while impeachment takes 67 votes in the Senate, a 14(3) vote is a simple majority.

A 2/3 majority vote in the Senate is all but impossible with the vast majority of Republicans actively aiding Trump but a handful of Republicans that leave their traitorous party to caucus with Democrats, or a swing in the balance of power in 2026, gives the simple majority votes needed to remove Trump and all the other traitors as the Constitution demnands.