A homeless encampment sweep on Van Ness between Eddy and Larch. Aug. 22, 2023
Van Ness at Center of Conflict
On August 22 morning, the day before the rally outside of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, I received a text message from my friend who lives on the 700 block of Van Ness Ave, “Breaking: Sweep on Van Ness happening now.”
A homeless encampment sweep on Van Ness between Eddy and Larch. Aug. 22, 2023
The big tent was removed and the steel planters were installed outside 725 Van Ness Avenue. Aug. 22, 2023
The unhoused people who refused the city’s offer of shelter and services just waited on Eddy and Larch between Van Ness and Franklin before they came back to the very same spot where they were before.
By noon after the Healthy Streets Operations Center (HSOC) team left, the tents were back in front of 799 Van Ness Avenue.
The tents are back in front of 799 Van Ness. Aug. 22, 2023
Residents and businesses on the 700 block of Van Ness Avenue I talked to were furious and frustrated seeing that the tents were back again.
“It’s like going into a circle,” they said.
They had been complaining to the city about that homeless encampment for months concerning the open-air drug market and use, the crimes, the destruction of their properties without cause, the fires, the unsanitary and unpassable sidewalk conditions, and the noises.
Rally signs made by residents and businesses on Van Ness and Larch. Aug. 22, 2023
As “Stop The Sweeps” vs. “Save Our Streets” could go to the Supreme Court, something must be done now to relieve the city’s inhumane street conditions and provide shelter and housing for the unhoused people who are willing to leave the streets.
I hoped to find possible amicable solutions by attending the rally outside the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on August 23.
I have friends on both sides, team “Stop The Sweeps” and team “Save Our Streets.”
I listened to their arguments during the rally with an open mind.
Team “Stop The Sweeps.” Aug.23, 2023
Team “Save Our Streets.” Aug.23, 2023
After listening and talking to both sides as well as law enforcement officers during the rally, I came up with these ideas as possible temporary solutions until the lawsuit is finally settled.
1.Offer unhoused people and drug addicts shelter, rehab, and treatment.
2.Offer a one-way bus ticket home; especially if they are not from San Francisco and refuse shelter, rehab, and treatment.
By all means, I don’t mean to be insensitive or sarcastic to team “Stop The Sweeps” but we and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors should look into this program.
The unhoused people, who are unwelcomed by team “Save Our Streets” on their sidewalks, could be adopted/housed by team “Stop The Sweeps” on their sidewalks, front or backyards, or spare bedrooms.
This way, team “Stop The Sweeps” doesn’t have to worry again about unhoused people getting swept by the city or encountering law enforcement officers.
The unhoused people will feel safe and can do whatever they want under the compassionate supervision of the team, “Stop The Sweeps.”
A chalk message on the sidewalk outside the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Aug. 23, 2023
This, by all means, doesn’t release the city’s responsibilities from building more shelters and permanent housing for unhoused people.
Unhoused people have the right to housing and housed people have the right to safe, clean, and vibrant streets.
When a group in the Castro called “Gays Against Blight” proposes sidewalk planters to beautify their gayborhood, it shows that San Franciscans from all walks of life want to save their streets to revive the vibrancy of their beloved City.
Either unhoused or housed people should be used as pawns in a sickening political game by folks who don’t understand life on the streets and its harrowing effects on residents and businesses.
1of7The sidewalks outside the former Carriage Inn Best Western at 140 Seventh St. in San Francisco, which is being rebranded as Hotel Fiona, are known for attracting drug users.Roland Li / The Chronicle
A major hotel investor is making a multimillion-dollar bet on San Francisco’s tourism recovery with the renovations and rebrandings of four San Francisco hotels, including a cluster of three on troubled Seventh Street in South of Market.
Oxford Capital Group is finishing work on new bathrooms and guest rooms, lobbies and installing new air conditioning systems and furniture. It is also renovating the Hotel Vertigo in Lower Nob Hill, one of the filming locations for the acclaimed 1958 Alfred Hitchcock movie of the same name.
The three Seventh Street hotels will start reopening in September, with new bars and restaurants planned next year. They’re all within two blocks of the San Francisco Federal Building, where drug dealers and users congregate daily. Government workers were told this month to work remotely due to safety concerns. On Friday, there were four tents on Mission Street outside one of the hotels, and another five on nearby Minna Street.
“We’re going to take back Seventh Street,” said George Jordan, president of Oxford Hotels & Resorts, Oxford Capital’s hotel operator subsidiary. “We know exactly what we’re up against. We know what we’re getting into. We’re not wearing rose-colored glasses.”
“San Francisco has been through fires, earthquakes, the dot-com burst, Y2K and the pandemic. It’ll get through fentanyl,” he said. “I think San Francisco’s on the nadir and we’re on the way back up.”
The hotels’ rebrandings and new features include:
The 152-room Americania Hotel at 121 Seventh St. will reopen as SoMa House in September. New amenities include a fitness center, heated outdoor pool and courtyard. A new sports-themed gastropub called SoMa Social is set to open in early 2024, with further plans to add a rooftop space.
The 121-room Good Hotel at 112 Seventh St. will reopen as the Hotel Garrett in September. A 3,500-square-foot restaurant and bar will open in 2024.
The 48-room Carriage Inn Best Western at 140 Seventh St. will reopen as the Hotel Fiona in September.
The 110-room Hotel Vertigo at 940 Sutter St. in Nob Hill will reopen as the Hotel Julian in mid-October. Though the hotel is shedding its Vertigo name, a two-story wine bar named Carlotta’s, after one of the movie’s characters, is set to open in early 2024.
Daily room rates in September range from $179 to $429 across the SoMa hotels, according to their websites.
San Francisco Business Times first reported the planned reopenings.
SFNext is Chronicle coverage devoted to the city’s most vexing problems.
The reopening of the three South of Market hotels will restore around 100 union hotel jobs. The Hotel Julian will add around 40 additional non-union jobs when it reopens.
Oxford bought the four hotels from local owners in 2019 as San Francisco enjoyed a record-breaking year of tourism. The pandemic crushed the industry, but Oxford was able to fill three of the hotels for almost three years by enrolling in the city’s shelter-in-place program for the homeless.
But tenants damaged the hotels during the shelter program, leading Oxford and other owners to file millions of dollars in claims against the city. The city approved a nearly $3.4 million payout in April to settle damages at Hotel Vertigo, and Oxford said all claims have been resolved.
The hotels have been closed for around nine months during renovations.
Oxford believes the Seventh Street hotels will benefit from easy access to the Civic Center BART Station and from being three blocks from conventions at Moscone Center.
The openings also come as few San Francisco hotel owners are investing in their properties. Only one other new hotel is scheduled to open this year, the former Le Meridien, which will now be called the Jay.
“We’re growing. We’re investing in our hotels,” said Sar Peruri, chief operating officer of Oxford Capital Group. “We’ll be differentiated.”
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San Francisco tourism has continued to bounce back in 2023, but a full return to pre-pandemic levels isn’t expected for a few years, according to the city’s tourism bureau.
Oxford purchased five additional Bay Area hotels in 2020, including the King George Hotel, Hotel Griffon and the Inn at Union Square in San Francisco. Business has been improving and the hotels are profitable, though they aren’t back to pre-pandemic levels and San Francisco still lags other U.S. cities, Jordan said. Still, he’s encouraged by positive market trends.
The 40,000-person Dreamforce conference is returning next month just as Oxford’s hotels start reopening, followed by the high-profile Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in November.
But convention activity is projected to drop in 2024, with confirmed convention hotel room bookings down more than a third compared to this year. That’s a major reason that another hotel investor, Park Hotels & Resorts, is walking away from ownership of two of the city’s biggest hotels, Parc 55 and Hilton San Francisco Union Square.
Oxford met recently with San Francisco Sheriff Paul Miyamoto, who detailed public safety efforts in the SoMa area, and the company said it feels supported by local officials.
“This is going to be a joint public-private effort,” said Peruri. “The moment that we’re open … what that’s going to do is immediately increase foot traffic and energy.”
Reach Roland Li: roland.li@sfchronicle.com; Twitter: @rolandlisf
Roland Li covers commercial real estate for the business desk, focusing on the Bay Area office and retail sectors.
He was previously a reporter at San Francisco Business Times, where he won one award from the California News Publishers Association and three from the National Association of Real Estate Editors.
He is the author of “Good Luck Have Fun: The Rise of eSports,” a 2016 book on the history of the competitive video game industry. Before moving to the Bay Area in 2015, he studied and worked in New York. He freelanced for the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and other local publications. His hobbies include swimming and urban photography.
Instead, on a sun-splashed Saturday, nearly 100 San Francisco residents and visitors took Del Seymour’s Tenderloin Walking Tour and got a quite different view of this storied central city neighborhood, its strife and strivings.
The Tenderloin tour disrupted the “doom loop” literally and metaphorically, offering a “positive” lens into the virally-maligned neighborhood, organizers said.
Del Seymour speaks to the crowd at Civic Center plaza. Photos by Christopher D. Cook.
The purported “doom loop tour,” Seymour told us, “was such a mean-spirited effort, I just can’t respond to meanness. The stupidity of it, I just can’t respond to it, so to give people an alternative I designed this tour today.” Purveyors of the “doom loop” narrative, Seymour added, “are using these people, using this community as fodder for their political campaign.”
In fact, Seymour has been leading the tours for 17 years, after living in the Tenderloin for 38 years. “I’m here every day, seven days a week,” he said as we departed gold-gilded City Hall for one of the city’s lowest-income and most diverse neighborhoods.
Asked if the Tenderloin is worse now than in years past, Seymour said that other than the recent fentanyl trend, “we’re the same.” In the mid-1980s, he noted, “we had crack cocaine that was devastating people. This is nothing compared to crack cocaine, and I was part of that.”
On the tour’s first stop, at the northeastern edge of the Civic Center Plaza that spreads like a rectangular fan out from City Hall, Seymour observed, “We are standing on top of our old convention center, before the Moscone Convention Center was built.” He added pointedly, “I don’t know why we’re not using it to facilitate some of our services for unhoused folks, because it’s a 50,000 square foot hall that’s just got some old furniture sitting in it.”
Snaking through the Tenderloin and on to Mid-Market, Seymour’s tour not only offers a rebuttal to the “doom loop” narrative prevailing in mainstream local and national media, but also provides a rare optimistic glimpse of “the beating heart of a city peopled by immigrants and iconoclasts, artists and activists, sinners and saints,” its website describes.
New York Post photographer focuses on ‘doom loop’ images
A few blocks from City Hall, across from the federal court and law enforcement building on Hyde Street, Seymour noted, “we are surrounded by US marshals, they drive through the Tenderloin like nothing’s up.”
At a stop in Glide Memorial Church’s nonprofit services center on Ellis Street, which ladles out 1,500 meals a day to homeless people, Seymour shared a morsel of that lurid, colorful history. A century ago, in ways different and similar to today, “The Tenderloin was a pretty raunchy place,” Seymour related—though, he quickly added, “Other people said it was a pretty fun place.”
When James “Sunny” Rolf became mayor in 1912, “All the vice was in North Beach,” but then Rolf “started buying property in North Beach, so he ran all the vice to the Tenderloin so he could clean up his neighborhood, which is now Telegraph Hill. That’s how the Tenderloin got the vices that it has.” The parallels with today are inescapable, as the Tenderloin remains a containment zone for much of the city’s most intense poverty and at least some of its vices.
Junior Ward, a videographer and social media coordinator for Glide, chimed in, noting, “we not only pass out meals to people, we help people find housing, get education… We specialize in creating a space where everyone feels welcome, appreciated, and loved.”
As the crowd wound its way down Turk, Hyde, and Ellis Streets and on to Jones and then Market Street, there was no shortage of suffering in view—people living in tents, garbage piled high, people hobbled by illness, addiction, poverty, and the visible scars of a rough life on the streets. Yet amid these realities, which are the sole focus of mainstream media coverage and the “doom loop” narrative, the Tenderloin also is home to families, people in recovery, and a panoply of nonprofits providing direct services to people in need.
Lauren Swiger and her dog walk with tour. Swiger lives in a Tenderloin hotel and says she and many others are “thriving” in the Tenderloin. She wants to stay in the neighborhood.
But as Seymour pointed out, the Tenderloin community is far more than the most easily visible misery on some of its sidewalks. At stops along the way, he showed the crowd various affordable and workforce development housing projects, some still partly vacant. He also mentioned the 2000 University of California Law School (formerly known as “Hastings”) students from around the world living in the Tenderloin. “There’s a bunch of groups of people living here that you all don’t even know about.”
I briefly interviewed a photographer for The New York Post—which has run no shortage of its own “doom loop” stories about San Francisco. Asked what drew him to cover the “doom loop tour” that was his original assignment, he replied, “it’s kind of interesting that someone wants to exploit the poverty.”
The Post’s reporter on the scene, Marjorie Hernandez, would not speak with us, but issued an article that, predictably, hyped the area’s blight—featuring the phrase “drug-infested San Francisco” in its opening sentence—while downplaying the tour’s more positive portrayals of the community.
Seymour said he sees the community and its struggles quite differently. When asked what the media are getting wrong about the Tenderloin, Seymour said, “That people want to be out here [in the streets]. That people are refusing services, which they’re not…. The narrative is that we people in the Tenderloin have gotten trenched in, and we like this and we’re comfortable with it, and that’s damn sure not the case. We are not comfortable with this at all. We’re uncomfortable with how they’re treating us.”
Contrary to the viral “doom loop” narratives of crime and death, Seymour added, “People here are friendly, it’s really a mild calm neighborhood, you don’t need a bullet-proof vest to come through here.”
Tenderloin resident Tyree Leslie, who works with Code Tenderloin and is training to help lead the walking tours, told me, “We’re all from the neighborhood, we’ve all been through stuff here. We know the people in the neighborhood, we know the people in the streets, we can talk to them… we’re a community like anywhere else. We accept everyone, we don’t try to push anybody out.”
Leslie was unhoused during the pandemic, then got into a temporary shelter-in-place hotel, and now lives in an apartment on Ellis. “There is a lot of great support, a lot of good people doing good things here. I’m tired of the negative news, I’m tired of people coming zipping through here and not talking to anyone who lives here.” Of the “doom loop tour,” Leslie said, “Whoever that was, for EventBrite to let them do that anonymously, that’s cowardice.”
Lauren Swiger, another Tenderloin resident on the tour, described how she ended up in the neighborhood. “At the end of last year, I lost my home under some really challenging and cruel circumstances, that’s how I find myself here,” where she says she is “thriving” while living in a hotel on Leavenworth and Eddy that serves women who are victims of domestic violence and assault.
She had strong words for the “doom loop tour” and its broader narrative. “To capitalize on people’s suffering is just atrocious, evil and greedy,” Swiger said. “We already have an issue of misrepresentation here in the Tenderloin, overlooking all of the help, all of the programs, all the coalitions, all of the community that is here, which is one of the reasons I don’t want to leave here now. Overlooking all of that and just focusing on the suffering and addiction and poverty is just so awful. That’s why many of us are here today, to highlight the positives.”
What positives, I asked Swiger? “The positive things I see are all of the help, all of the substance abuse treatment programs, all of the supportive housing…. A lot of people are here because they are turning their lives around, getting back on their feet.” She added: “The doom loop is focusing on the people that are down and out but that is negating the many, many more people who are here building their lives up to need that extra help. All that positivity is being ignored by the doom loop. There are many, many more of us here who are turning our lives around and giving back to the community.”
Swiger said the “doom loop” media fixation is misrepresenting the Tenderloin and obscuring the community’s rich culture and care. “There’s a lot of creative performance, art, and music happening here,” said Swiger, who is part of Skywatchers, a multi-disciplinary arts and performance group that works and performs in the community. “One of the things that art does is help you heal, and there’s a lot of that going on, but it doesn’t get any press. Fentanyl gets all the press.”
Anne Bluethenthal, a founder and director of Skywatchers, said she wants people to see “the love of humanity here. … Anything that cuts through the othering that the national media is doing in the Tenderloin.” The media, she said, “has a hunger for poverty porn, objectification, or spectacularization of people’s misery. Instead of focusing on the centuries that made this situation inevitable and the responsibility that we all have to take care of each other.”
Along our way down Jones Street, Seymour pointed out a small business, a Middle Eastern woman running a restaurant. “There were hundreds of people hanging out on the block,” Seymour described. “She would come out there every day and ask people, I’m trying to open a business, could you just move down a little bit? She just did it day by day, took her one year, but she completely cleaned up that corner all by herself. Nobody went to jail. It’s the way you talk to people.”
Toward the end of the tour, as we made our way down Market Street after a visit to the International Art Museum of America, I spoke with Jason and Marie, a married couple living in the Outer Sunset, who have made San Francisco their home for ten years.
Asked what she gleaned from the tour, Marie responded, “the history and all the activism here are really inspiring. All of the nonprofits that are working really hard to transform people’s lives.” The doom loop narrative, she said, “is not helping anyone. It’s not helping our city recover, it’s not helping our small business merchants, it’s not helping our neighborhoods. Something like this countering that, showing pride and love for the city, a willingness to make things better, that’s a positive thing.”
As we neared the end of the walk along Market Street, Marie’s husband Jason added some choice and pointed reflections: “It seems like there is a political faction that needs San Francisco to fail to prove some point about the failures of the left. To me the irony is, San Francisco is the site of people making a ton of money off of capitalism and at the same time having such inequality.” Still, Jason said, “We love it here, we want to stay here, and we want to see this city turned around and be an example for how to have everybody live well and not just those that make a bunch of money off of tech.”
Christopher D. Cook is an award-winning journalist and former city editor of The San Francisco Bay Guardian. He also writes for Harper’s, Mother Jones, The Atlantic, The Los Angeles Times, and others. Contact him through www.christopherdcook.com.
Bernie Sanders Premiered 2 hours ago Democrats must ignore the corporate wing of the party and instead put forward a concrete agenda that speaks to the needs of struggling working Americans.
Vendors, organizers, and fans of the Heart of the City Farmers’ Market will be staging a protest on Wednesday in a last-ditch effort to change the city’s mind about its plans to turn UN Plaza and its promenade near City Hall into an outdoor recreation area.
Plans for the combination skate park and ping-pong/Teqball space, with additional chess boards and other amenities, were first made public in early July. Since then, apparently, a pickleball court has been added to the plan — or maybe that is replacing some other aspect, because, like, who’s heard of Teqball?
The idea is to give non-fentanyl users a reason to come to UN Plaza, and to perhaps push the drug dealing and drug using further out of the area.
While the tree-lined promenade area leading from the fountain toward Hyde Street and Civic Center is only occasionally activated by rotating community events, it has, for over 40 years, been home to the Heart of the City Farmers’ Market. The market hosts farmers and other vendors two days a week, Wednesday and Sunday, and in September the city plans to move the market to the somewhat smaller Fulton Plaza across Hyde — the area between the Asian Art Museum and the SF Public Library.
The longtime executive director of the market, Steve Pulliam, and some of its vendors, have been expressing their objections to the move for several weeks now. Among these are less space for vendors — the new market won’t allow vendors to pull their trucks in behind their stands for product storage, etc. — and less accessibility for disabled patrons coming from BART, who will have an extra street to cross and more distance to travel.
Farmers also tell 48 Hills that they worry about their trucks being broken into or stolen if they have to park them some distance away from the market.
There is also the issue of longtime customers perhaps missing the memo and not being able to find their favorite vendors.
“I’m just in tears about it,” says one of those longtime customers, Carol Jean Wisnieski, speaking to KTVU. “I’ve been shopping here since even before it was certified as a farmers’ market. I’m devastated by this, and I think the public has not had time to respond to what’s going on!”
As Pulliam adds, speaking to KTVU, regarding the logistics of the move, “We still don’t have water even though we’re working on that. The lighting is not as good over there, so when [the vendors] come in at 4:30 in the morning we want to make sure that we have sufficient lighting for them to set up.”
Regarding customers with disabilities, Pulliam says, “We have several blind customers that come through that are afraid to cross that street. We’ll take them around to all the vendors and help them shop, but now we have to maybe pick them up over here and walk them across the street.”
SF Recreation & Parks Department spokesperson Daniel Montes put out a statement Monday clarifying that “The new site will include things like dedicated vendor and staff parking and increased parking enforcement to ensure spots are not taken by non-vendors.” Montes also said there will be plenty of room for all 70 vendor stalls that appear at the height of the market’s season, and that this will not be a downsizing of the market.
A protest will reportedly be happening Wednesday, August 30 in which fans of the market and its vendors will march from UN Plaza to the steps of City Hall two blocks away, starting at 12:15 p.m. (KTVU has the date as Wed. September 30 but that seems to be a misprint, as that is not a Wednesday, and the market is scheduled to relocate by September 3.)
A flyer has also been posted in recent weeks encouraging people to call Rec & Parks and/or the Mayor’s office to complain. You can also call 415-701-2311 and leave a voicemail with your complaint for the mayor or the parks department.
The Heart of the City Farmers’ Market has been operating since 1981, and was one of the city’s first farmers’ markets. It remains independently operated — most of the city’s other markets are part of larger organizations that host multiple markets — and being located amid one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods, it provides $4 million worth of food each year through food-assistance programs like CalFresh, WIC, and EatSF.
In recent days, there has been a great deal of talk in the media about whether Section 3 of the 14th Amendment bars Donald Trump from the ballot given his role in the Jan 6 insurrection.
That constitutional Amendment—enacted after the Civil War—was prompted after Southern States had outrageously sent to Congress to serve as U.S. Senators and Representatives men who had violated previously sworn oaths to support the U.S. Constitution by engaging in or supporting the Confederacy against the United States. These people seeking to serve in Congress included, “four Confederate generals, four colonels, several Confederate congressmen and members of Confederate state legislatures, and even the vice president of the Confederacy, Alexander Stephens.”
In other words, people who tried to destroy the United States of America from the outside, were now being sent to attempt to do the same from the inside.
Thus, was born Section 3 of the 14th Amendment that provides: “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in 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, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”
Last week, two prominent conservative scholars, William Baude of the University of Chicago and Michael Stokes Paulsen of the University of St Thomas, made a compelling case that Trump is disqualified from holding office in article published in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. And just a few days ago, conservative former federal court of appeals judge J. Michael Luttig and famed Harvard Law constitutional professor Laurence Tribe penned an article for The Atlantic titled, “The Constitution Prohibits Trump From Ever Being President Again.” These two distinguished jurists reached the same conclusion that Trump had “engaged in insurrection” and is barred from ever serving in federal office again by way of the US Constitution.
In my view, they are correct. But the only way to reach a definitive answer is if a secretary of state or state election board first rules on the issue. If they do bar Trump, it will be appealed by Trump and it will likely go all the way to the United States Supreme Court. That is the ultimately the tribunal that needs to render a decision on this all important issue. But the process must start now.
This is where you and I come in. No, we don’t have to file a lawsuit or argue a case in the Supreme Court. But we must email complaints to the Secretary of State and/or the state election board where you live demanding that they either disqualify Trump based on this constitutional disqualified, or better yet, hold a hearing/trial to determine if Trump violated Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
You don’t need to be a lawyer to send such an email. All you need to be is a patriotic American who believes in our Constitution.
To make things easier, I have drafted a short email posted at the end of this article that you can use as a guide. You simply need to look up the state election officials in your state to obtain the correct email address and send it.
For those wondering if Trump’s criminal cases first need to be concluded before a decision is made on banning him from the ballot, the answer is definitely no. As the non-partisan Congressional Research Service notes—there “does not expressly require a criminal conviction, and historically, one was not necessary”—based on the cases after the Amendment was enacted.
That was also the ruling of a New Mexico court in 2022 considering this section of the Constitution that I will explain in more detail below. Thus, there is no need Trump be convicted of or even charged with inciting an insurrection—or any other crime–under federal law as a prerequisite to finding him violated the US Constitution.
Vitally important for those who support banning Trump from the ballot is that 2022 New Mexico court ruling that decided—after a trial—to remove from office, Otero County Commissioner Couy Griffin and bar him from seeking office again for his violation of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
Before the court ruled on whether Griffin—the head of Cowboys for Trump—was disqualified from holding office, a trial was held where expert testimony was heard about whether Jan 6 was an “insurrection” as contemplated by the 14th Amendment. Mark Graber, a professor at the University of Maryland Law School who has taught American political and constitutional history for 30 years, testified about what the framers of the 14th Amendment would deem an ”insurrection.” Based on his expert testimony together with past court decisions, the judge found that the term “insurrection,” as “understood by knowledgeable nineteenth-century Americans and Section Three’s framers, referred to an (1) assemblage of persons, (2) acting to prevent the execution of one or more federal laws, (3) for a public purpose, (4) through the use of violence, force, or intimidation by numbers.”
This powerful passage from the judge’s ruling on that Jan 6 attacks is bone-chilling: “The mob ultimately achieved what even the Confederates never did during the Civil War: They breached the Capitol building and seized the Capitol grounds, forcing the Vice President and Congress to halt their constitutional duties and flee to more secure locations.”
Looking at these facts and applying the legal standard, the judge concluded that the Jan 6 attack was an “insurrection” within the meaning of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
The Judge then looked at whether Griffin had “engaged” in this insurrection as defined by the 14th Amendment. Citing past case law and the testimony of the historian/law professor, the judge explained that, “Nineteenth-century Americans understood that a person ‘engaged in’ insurrection whenever they were “leagued” with insurrectionists.” This was evidenced “either by acting in concert with others knowing that the group intended to achieve its purpose in part by violence, force, or intimidation by numbers or by performing an “overt act” knowing that act would “aid or support” the insurrection.”
The judge explained instructively that based on past case law: “One need not personally commit acts of violence to “engag[e] in” insurrection,” adding instructively, “Engagement thus can include non-violent overt acts or words in furtherance of the insurrection.”
The judge then found that Griffin had “engaged” in an insurrection by his mobilizing people to attend the Jan. 6 rally with a combination of election lies and inflammatory rhetoric, marching into the restricted area surrounding the Capitol on Jan. 6 and during the attack vocally supporting the mob breaching the Capitol. (Griffin’s appeal to the New Mexico Supreme Court was rejected for a second time earlier this year.)
While a New Mexico court decision is not controlling in other states, the detailed findings and compelling reasoning is very persuasive. In fact, this court decision should be sent to the Secretary of State and/or state election offices—as I have included in my model email below.
Obviously, Trump did far, far more than Griffin. He was the reason for the Jan 6 insurrection. If Trump had simply accepted he had lost the election, there would not have been no Jan 6 insurrection.
Instead, Trump mobilized people to gather that day for what he promised would be a “wild” event. He also told lies that incited the crowd, and directed his supporters who were chanting “Fight for Trump” to “walk down to the Capitol” and “Stop the Steal.” He also pushed them to take action with lines like, “We’re stuck with a president who lost the election by a lot and we have to live with that for four more years,” adding, “We’re just not going to let that happen.”
In addition, during the Jan 6 attack, Trump tweeted—after he knew the Capitol had been breached—an attack on his then Vice President, “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution.” As Trump knew would happen, his supporters then surged in attacking the Capitol—a point established by the Jan 6 House hearings. This goes far beyond Griffin simply yelling support for the attackers on Jan 6 as they breached the Capitol.
It is clear from the New Mexico case and other recent ones—such as the one brought against Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene— that voters in each state have standing to file a lawsuit to do that. And for those so compelled, please do just that. But my hope is all others will send an email to their respective Secretary of State and/or state Election board demanding they at least hold a hearing on the issue.
Barring Trump from the ballot based on the 14th Amendment is not anti-democratic, it’s about upholding the United States Constitution. It’s that simple.
Trump belongs in a prison cell, not on the ballot. I shudder to think of the damage Trump will do to our nation between now and November 2024 if he remains on the ballot. Please take a moment to email your state election officials so that we can have this issue brought to a head now—not when it’s too late.
*****Here is a form email you can copy and paste to send to your state’s secretary of state and/or election board:
Dear [fill in name of your Secretary of state or Election board]
I’m writing to your offices urging a formal review of whether Donald Trump is barred from the ballot in this state by way of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. That Amendment disqualifies from the ballot any person who “shall have engaged” in an “insurrection.” For such a disqualification, there is no requirement that Trump or any person be first convicted of any crime—as the Congressional Research Service notes.
In addition, last year after a trial in New Mexico, a judge ruled that Jan 6 was an “insurrection” within the meaning of the 14th Amendment and that Otero County Commissioner Couy Griffin was removed from office and disqualified from the ballot for “engaging” in that attack. Donald Trump’s actions– as detailed in the final report of the “Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack”—far exceed the actions of Griffin in terms of “engaging” in the Jan 6 insurrection. While that New Mexico ruling is not binding in this state, it is persuasive in its reasoning and I urge your offices to read it.
Finally, conservative legal scholars have recently penned articles reaching the conclusion that given Trump’s conduct, the US Constitution does in fact bar Trump from the ballot.
As the US Constitution mandates, no one should be permitted to be on the ballot who has engaged in an insurrection. The time to review if Trump has done just that and is barred from the ballot is now—well before the 2024 election.
Thank you for considering this issue that is vitally important to protecting our Republic.
PDAMERICA Streamed live 22 hours ago Our guest this Sunday, Steve Donziger, is a central figure in one of the most significant court cases of the 21st century—or, to be more precise, series of court cases across three continents. As much as any lawyer in the world, Donziger has challenged the fossil fuel industry—and when he won, they brought all their might, immeasurable wealth, and influence to gain vengeance. This Sunday, Steve Donziger joins us to tell this amazing story, and the lessons he has learned along the way, that we all need to understand if we’re going to save the planet from the forces destroying it.
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Phone Bank Force Calls Virtual Phone Bank Time Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays 6:30 – 9pm EST Location Virtual event Join from anywhere About this event Sign up to make calls with the Our Revolution Phone Bank force. The calls can be for candidates or issues! Get involved in... Continue reading →
As of today, we’re only two weeks away from CalCare’s first hearing and vote in the California State Assembly Health Committee! This is our first major hurdle to move the bill forward, so we need to build public support for it across the state ASAP — especially as the corporate,... Continue reading →
Intro Empathy Café: Find out how to listen to others and how it feels to speak without interruption or fear of interruption. Meet people from around the world. Mondays at 10 a.m. Pacific time. Zoom Room: https://zoom.us/j/9896109339 How-To: Basic Empathy Circle In a Circle of 3 to 5 Participants 1. The first... Continue reading →
True to Blue IN-PERSON Phone Bank for VA, OH, and CA: Saturday, September 23 (and every Saturday), 10:00–12:00 PM at 541 Castro Street. Join an in-person phone bank with the Bay Area Coalition to make calls to voters in key states for critical elections in 2023 and 2024. RSVP here.
With the help of people like you, we’ve built a growing list of people and small businesses that support CalCare all over the state. These small business and crowd canvasses have been a huge success so far, but we need to keep the momentum going. Will you RSVP for one... Continue reading →
As of today, we’re only two weeks away from CalCare’s first hearing and vote in the California State Assembly Health Committee! This is our first major hurdle to move the bill forward, so we need to build public support for it across the state ASAP — especially as the corporate,... Continue reading →
With the help of people like you, we’ve built a growing list of people and small businesses that support CalCare all over the state. These small business and crowd canvasses have been a huge success so far, but we need to keep the momentum going. Will you RSVP for one... Continue reading →
Take action with Call 4 Change Check out these ways to get involved! Map Filters More filters… Highest-priority events This weekend Sun, Oct 8 @ 3pm PDT Go to: mobilize.us/call4change VIRTUAL PHONE BANKS: VA HOUSE OF DELEGATES & KENTUCKY GOVERNOR’S RACE & CA-HELP FLIP THE HOUSE! Virtual · Join from... Continue reading →
Phone Bank Force Calls Virtual Phone Bank Time Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays 6:30 – 9pm EST Location Virtual event Join from anywhere About this event Sign up to make calls with the Our Revolution Phone Bank force. The calls can be for candidates or issues! Get involved in... Continue reading →
Earth Day: April 22, 2024 By admin | April 4, 2024 | Uncategorized From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia For the measurement of time of one rotation, see Day. Not to be confused with Earth Hour. Earth Day The unofficial Earth Flag created by John McConnell includes The Blue Marble photograph taken by the crew of Apollo 17. Significance Support for environmental protection Begins 1970 Date... Continue reading →
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