25 historians shred arguments against disqualifying Trump from ballots: legal expert

On Thursday, February 8, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Trump v. Anderson — a case that, according to SCOTUSBlog, will determine "whether the Colorado Supreme Court erred in ordering former President Donald Trump excluded from the 2024 presidential primary ballot."

Trump's supporters — as well as some of his critics — have used a variety of arguments against a ruling by Colorado Supreme Court, which decided that Trump is ineligible for the state's presidential ballot based on Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment. Section 3 states that an "officer" who has engaged in "insurrection" is disqualified from certain government positions.

Some critics of the Colorado decision have argued that presidents do not fit Section 3's definition of "officer," but MSNBC legal writer Jordan Rubin tears down that argument in a blog column published on January 29.

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Rubin notes that 25 scholars "with expertise in 19th-Century American history" have sent the Supreme Court an amicus brief explaining why Section 3 does, in fact, apply to presidents.

"To explain why the section…. covers presidents," Rubin writes, "the historians point to congressional debate at the time of the (14th) Amendment, in which a senator questioned why presidents were being excluded. The historians recalled that an influential backer of the amendment noted that the section incorporated the president, replying: 'Let me call the Senator's attention to the words 'or hold any office civil or military under the United States.'"

Rubin continues, "The initial senator 'admitted his error,' and no other senator 'questioned whether Section 3 covered the President,' the historians wrote. The implication, then, is that for the Supreme Court to hold that the clause doesn't cover the president would contravene the historical record."

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Jordan Rubin's full MSNBC column is available at this link.