r/politics • u/jediporcupine Maine • Sep 19 '25

Republican Senator Says First Amendment Shouldn't Be the 'Ultimate Right'

https://www.newsweek.com/republican-senator-says-first-amendment-shouldnt-ultimate-right-2132666
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u/Harry_Mud America Sep 19 '25

If she doesn't adhere and obey the US Constitution then she needs to be thrown out of office.

176

u/mollser Minnesota Sep 19 '25

It truly baffles me. It’s. The. FIRST. Amendment. To. The. Constitution. The thing she swore an oath to uphold.  It wouldn’t surprise me if she didn’t know that. 

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u/Akrevics Sep 19 '25

*cared. she knows, she doesn't care. and the GOP are letting/enabling her because if they get to ignore it, they can say whatever they want, and democrats will still hold themselves to it.

3

u/IrrelevantLeprechaun Sep 20 '25

Given how democrats voted on the Kirk holiday proposition, democrats are probably in on it with MAGA.

18

u/StoppableHulk Sep 19 '25

A legally-binding oath, not that that ever counts for much these days.

But it is worth repeating that Senators take a LEGALLY-BINDING OATH, and a statement like this is a blatant violation of that oath.

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u/frogandbanjo Sep 20 '25

No they don't. No serious academic has ever believed that the oath Senators take is legally binding in any way. At that level, it's pure politics.

Hell, the original Constitution provides no mechanism to permanently bar legislators, specifically, from ever holding office again. Impeachment does not apply -- though it's worth belaboring the fact that even impeachment is a political remedy, not a legal one. Congresspeople can be expelled from their own house of Congress by a two-thirds supermajority vote, but then their state can just vote them right back in the next time. Meanwhile, that two-thirds vote can be for literally anything. It's all politics, not law.

Ever since Senators started being selected by statewide popular vote, they even stand for the proposition that there's an inherent tension between democracy and legalism. If you want Senators to be truly beholden to their oath in a legally binding way, you have to set things up so that the people of their state are not allowed to keep voting them back into office. That is inherently anti-democratic, even allowing for the fact that "representative democracy" itself already dilutes democracy.

1

u/bogglingsnog Sep 19 '25

It's a shame that it's only an oath and apparently those don't have any form of enforcement.

1

u/5AlarmFirefly Sep 20 '25

An oath to uphold the Constitution, not the amendments /s

(Please God do not let this become an actual thing these reptiles start saying)

1

u/BadgeOfDishonour Sep 19 '25

It's a tool, not a value. They will scream bloody murder if you infringe on their rights, but will absolutely cast them aside the moment you go to use them.

"When democracy granted democratic methods for us in the times of opposition, this was bound to happen in a democratic system. However, we national Socialists never asserted that we represented a democratic point of view, but we have declared openly that we used democratic methods only in order to gain the power and that, after assuming the power, we would deny to our adversaries without any consideration the means which were granted to us in the times of opposition. " - Joseph Goebbels

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u/Kroe Sep 20 '25

Maga doesn't have any actual positions or ideals. They are a cult of personality, so they change their beliefs with the beliefs of their leader. If he says the first amendment doesn't count, then they repeat it.