What to expect in next week’s oral arguments in Trump v. Anderson about the former president’s eligibility to run for office

By James C. Phillips

Can Donald Trump be constitutionally barred from being president of the United States a second time after the unprecedented and tragic events of Jan. 6, 2021? Next Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments on this very question in Trump v. Anderson. The answer will depend on the meaning of a long-obscure portion of the Constitution: Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.

Adopted just three years after the end of the Civil War, the 14th Amendment is mostly known for prohibiting states from denying people due process or equal protection of the laws. The amendment also applies most of the Bill of Rights against the states so that they could not infringe those rights.

Yet there was a concern so soon after the war that those who had been involved in the Southern Confederacy would, for example, seek to be elected to Congress or serve in the national government as an officer.

So Section 3 of the amendment states:

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. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

This constitutional text raises several questions at issue in Trump v. Anderson, with future columns seeking to unpack each of these issues and present the arguments on both sides. Here are the questions:

Does this provision apply to the President, both as to which offices are disqualified and who engaged in insurrection?

https://www.deseret.com/2024/1/31/24057456/could-donald-trump-be-constitutionally-barred-from-becoming-president-again