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WASHINGTON – Is the president an official of the United States?
How the Supreme Court answers this seemingly simple question could determine whether former President Donald Trump can return to the White House.
Is “officer of the United States” a technical term in the Constitution for appointed officials such as cabinet members and sometimes leaders of obscure government agencies, as Mr. Trump’s lawyers claim? Or does it refer to a former president who holds federal office and is subject to the 14th Amendment’s anti-insurrection clause?
The judges on Thursday will hear President Trump’s appeal of the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling disqualifying him from inciting the mob that rioted at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. This issue will likely be the most contentious.
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Four of the five reasons President Trump gave the justices to overturn the ruling extend beyond the Colorado case and are likely to end similar challenges across the country.
One only applies to Colorado.
And what if a majority of the justices reject all of Trump’s claims? Other states are free to exclude him from voting, depending on their own election laws.
That would cause “chaos and chaos,” Trump’s lawyers said in court.
Lawyers for six Republicans and independent voters who are challenging Trump’s eligibility in Colorado are calling for the chaos caused by Trump’s refusal to accept his re-election loss on January 6, 2021. He said the people have already witnessed it. The constitution puts him in no position to do so again, they told the court.
Their case rests on 14 sections.th An amendment enacted after the Civil War that expels from public office those who commit rebellion after pledging to support the Constitution. The clause reads:
No person may serve as a senator or representative of Congress, or as an elector for president and vice president, under the United States or any state, or as an elector of the United States or under any state, unless he has previously taken the oath of office as a member of Congress. He shall not be eligible to hold any office, civil or military, under the state. engaged in rebellion or insurrection in support of the Constitution of the United States, either as a member of Congress or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of a state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state; There is. In the same way, or to give aid or comfort to one’s enemies. However, Congress can remove such obstacles by a two-thirds vote in each house.
Here’s why President Trump says the 14th Amendment prevents him from voting in 2024, and why his opponents disagree.
The President is not an “officer of the United States”‘
President Trump’s biggest argument is Article 3 of the 14 articles.th The amendment simply does not apply to the office of the president, nor to him in particular.
This provision prohibits anyone who has previously taken an oath “as an officer of the United States” and “to uphold the Constitution” from holding “any office under the United States, whether civil or military.”
Trump may have held the office of president, but his lawyers argue that he is not an “officer of the United States” as that term is used in the Constitution.
Also, President Trump, like members of Congress, did not promise to “uphold” the Constitution when he was sworn into office. In return, the president promises to “preserve, protect and defend” the Constitution. (Trump is the only person elected president without government or military experience, but he never took the oath of support for the Constitution during his previous term.)
And Section 3 names various government positions, such as senators and representatives, but does not mention the president. If Trump’s lawyers wanted the provision to apply to the president, why did the drafters of the amendment include lower-ranking military personnel and even presidential electors without specifically mentioning the nation’s most prominent offices? claims.
Others counter that it is contrary to common sense to believe that the drafters of the amendment wanted to protect the Constitution from oath-breaking insurrectionists of all but the head of the executive branch and commander-in-chief. That was clear from the debate surrounding the amendment’s ratification in 1868, lawyers for Colorado voters argue.
They say the natural meaning of “officer of the United States” refers to someone who holds a federal office, and that’s what presidents have been called since the nation’s founding. And pledging to “defend” the Constitution is at least as demanding, if not more so, than pledging to “uphold” it.
President Trump was not involved in the ‘insurrection’‘
Trump’s lawyers claim he never told his supporters to enter the Capitol and “did not lead, direct, or encourage the illegal activity that occurred at the Capitol.” .
“Despite the relentless and ongoing investigation into President Trump,” he has never been criminally charged with insurrection, they write.
(The federal indictment against Trump charges him with conspiring to illegally overturn the 2020 election. He is also charged with election extortion in Georgia for allegedly trying to interfere with that state’s presidential election.) In 2021, the Senate acquitted Trump of the impeachment charge of inciting the presidential election (insurrection at the Capitol on January 6).
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Lawyers for Colorado voters argue that Title III is not a criminal penalty and does not require a conviction for sedition.
They also argue that President Trump is wrong to claim that he cannot be “involved” in an insurrection unless he personally commits an act of violence.
“Leaders rarely take up arms themselves,” they wrote in their filing. “It makes no sense to adopt a legal standard that gives a free pass to those most responsible for the insurrection, as President Trump does here.”
Colorado voters take to the Supreme CourtDon’t give Trump the power to cause more “mayhem”
Only Congress decides how to enforce Article 3.
President Trump has argued that the 14th Amendment gives Congress, rather than state courts or authorities, the power to enforce the ban. They say the law is needed because Article 3 does not set out a process for determining whether someone has “participated in an insurrection.”
The other counters that states have historically enforced Article III without direction from Congress, and that the Constitution gives states broad authority to restrict presidential voting to candidates eligible for the office. do.
Section 3 only prohibits someone from holding public office, and prohibits someone from running for public office.
Mr. Trump argues that the proposed amendment would not prevent insurrectionists who have broken their oath from running for office, or simply from holding public office. Even if a candidate was ineligible at the time of the election, this amendment would allow Congress to lift the disqualification before the start of the term by a two-thirds vote of each chamber, so the inauguration You can qualify by then.
That means Congress ultimately has to decide whether this provision should prevent someone from becoming president, Trump argues.
But lawyers for Colorado voters counter that the fact that Congress had the power to lift the ban proves it could have been enforced as soon as the amendment was ratified. did.
Waiting to determine President Trump’s eligibility until tens of millions of Americans have voted would lead to mass disenfranchisement and a constitutional crisis, they wrote.
Colorado law does not allow the state to order President Trump removed from office.
Trump argues that Colorado’s election law allows state courts to intervene in voting disputes only to correct or prevent errors. His lawyers say Colorado’s secretary of state did nothing wrong by putting Trump on the ballot because Title III doesn’t apply to candidates, only to officeholders. That’s what it means.
But they counter that states have broad powers to regulate presidential elections and can exclude constitutionally unqualified candidates. They wrote that Article III would apply to Mr. Trump unless two-thirds of the House of Representatives and two-thirds of the Senate vote for immunity.
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