It is certainly true that state District Judge Francis Mathew found that Griffin’s participation in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol amounted to insurrection and disqualified him from holding public office under state law and the 14th Amendment.

However, Judge Mathew’s decision is, in my view, dead wrong. … The New Mexico Supreme Court did not uphold Mathew on the merits. It might well have done so, but the decision was based entirely on procedural groups. It was not a ruling on the merits.

[The 14th Amendment talk is just that — talk. Supposedly this “disqualification” happens by acclaim, because Donald Trump has not been convicted, or tried, or even indicted for treason or insurrection. The 14th Amendment applied to the Confederates who were easily identified as such. Otherwise, there would have to be an adjudication process to disqualify a candidate on this basis, and there hasn’t been one nor does one actually exist. Notably, no one applied it to Eugene Debs, the Socialist candidate imprisoned for violating the unconstitutional Sedition Act, as he ran for president from his prison cell. — Ed]