Enforce Constitution Section III in the 14th Amendment - January 6th sedition punishment

Capitol riot participants must be punished.
Courts need to send a message that deters insurrectionists.

Jan. 6, 2021, violent insurrectionists loyal to The Former Guy hold on to a police barrier at the U.S. Capitol. 

Editor opinion letter published in the Reading Eagle, a Pennsylvania newspaper:

After the Civil War, members of Congress realized that tens of thousands of U.S. citizens had taken seditious, rebellious acts of insurrection against the United States of America. 

Large numbers of Confederates had previously taken an oath of allegiance to the United States when elected to state and federal offices or by serving in the military.

To prevent them from ever holding office again, Section III of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was written and adopted by the states*.

In the near future numerous individuals fitting the aforementioned parameters will have been identified as Jan. 6 insurrectionists through the scrutiny of a House special committee and the testimony of witnesses.

Should Congress convict any or all of them, they should be held to the stipulated penalties of the 14th Amendment. These could include a former chief executive of the U.S., members of Congress, state legislators, law enforcement officers and others.

Whether or not the historic document that has guided our constitutional republic since before George Washington’s election is worth the paper it is written on will be determined by how any punishment is meted out against the insurrectionists.

The likelihood of a future coup d’etat should be greatly diminished by effective application of the 14th Amendment.

Gary Coller
Spring Township

* Section Three of the 14th amendment, gave Congress the authority to bar public officials, who took an oath of allegiance to the U.S. Constitution, from holding office if they "engaged in insurrection or rebellion" against the Constitution. The intent was to prevent the president from allowing former leaders of the Confederacy to regain power within the U.S. government after securing a presidential pardon. It states that a two-thirds majority vote in Congress is required to allow public officials who had engaged in rebellion to regain the rights of American citizenship and hold government or military office.

It states that: "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."