After the Supreme Court dismissed the Texas attorney general’s attempt to block electors from four battleground states from voting in the Electoral College (and basically ended any chance that President Trump’s allies could overthrow the results of the election), the head of the Texas Republican Party suggested like-minded states should “form a union of states that will abide by the constitution."
It was the latest in a string of moments that unfolded around the election which some in the media have said borders on sedition.
But according to Jennifer Stepp Breen, an associate professor at the Syracuse University School of Law, simply calling for a revolution is not against the law.
“We have a federal criminal law defining seditious conspiracy, and that’s when a group of two or more people gather together to essentially overthrow the government, or prevent a government from enacting its laws,” Breen told Capital Tonight.
“The way that courts have defined the concept of seditious speech is that they want to see imminent lawless activity, so it’s not just saying things that are offensive to the Constitution. There must be something in addition to that," Breen said.