As the Colorado Supreme Court wrote, January 6 meets the bar for insurrection “under any viable definition” of the term. The legal scholar Mark Graber, who has closely studied the Fourteenth Amendment’s history, argues that “insurrection” should be understood broadly—an act of organized resistance to government authority motivated by a “public purpose.” That certainly describes the Capitol riot, in which a violent mob attacked law enforcement and threatened members of Congress and the vice president in order to block the rightful counting of the electoral vote and illegally secure the victory of the losing candidate. The historical record also suggests that the amendment’s requirement that a prospective officeholder must have “engaged in insurrection” should also be understood broadly—meaning that Trump’s speech on the Ellipse that morning and his encouragement of the rioters while they smashed their way through the Capitol more than fit the bill.
How did you come with that? No part of the 14th Amendment has EVER been “self executing”. There’s been an almost uncountable number of court cases involving the 14th Amendment, including many of the most famous ones. I see no reason why Section 3 is somehow different than any of the others.
In the most famous use of Section 3 there WAS a conviction on a charges of espionage before a sanction was applied.
The argument you are making is currently popular, because fuck Trump, but there is no historical basis for it and at least one example against it.
First, this example was an adjudication of the facts regarding FITNESS, and not based on his CONVICTION under the Espionage Act. He was disqualified in almost entirely the same way that Donald Trump was disqualified in Colorado. His appointment was challenged by average citizens.
Second, by self-executing the meaning of this is not necessarily that by magic or preturnatural means that Donald Trump’s name will no longer appear on the ballot. There may still be other legal process in each state to remove him, which is what we have seen. That does not, however, require CONVICTION for insurrection or espionage (as in your example), which is what the legal argument means by self-executing.
In the link below you can read the background regarding the very first case that was decided under the Section 3 of the 14th Ammendment, and how that decision was at best from a judge with an ulterior motive or compromised judgement where he knew he was not acting in the spirit or intention of the law. Every single piece of contemporaneous discussions about this Ammendment shows that it was well understood to be self-executing in the sense that it did not require prior conviction. No amount of revisionist history, or attempts to smuggle in doubt will change that.
https://www.dorfonlaw.org/2023/08/what-it-means-to-say-that-section-3-of.html?m=1
I suggest that you read up on it a little more. That article 3 is self-executing is not a controversial or extreme opinion and is well within the mainstream of legal scholarship. The SCOTUS may rule that it isn’t, but that’s going to be a tough nut to crack for its three conservative originalists since at its inception article 3 was clearly used to bar all former Confederate officers from holding federal office without the necessity of a trial and conviction.