An About-Face on Whether the 14th Amendment Bars Trump From Office

[Draggingtree]

The New York Times

 

An About-Face on Whether the 14th Amendment Bars Trump From Office

Adam Liptak

Mon, September 18, 2023 at 6:41 AM CDT·4 min read

WASHINGTON — A little more than a month ago, a law professor who helped found the Federalist Society, the conservative legal group, enthusiastically endorsed a new law review article arguing that Donald Trump was ineligible to be president.

The article was “a tour de force,” the professor, Steven G. Calabresi, told me. It demonstrated, he said, that Trump was subject to a provision of the Constitution that bars some officials who have engaged in insurrection from holding government office.

“Trump is ineligible to be on the ballot, and each of the 50 state secretaries of state has an obligation to print ballots without his name on them,” said Calabresi, who teaches at Northwestern University.

He appeared to be offering considered views, and he elaborated on them in a blog post titled “Trump Is Disqualified From Being on Any Election Ballots.” 

Last week, in an extraordinary about-face, the professor changed his mind.

In a letter to The Wall Street Journal, he said he had been persuaded by an opinion article in that newspaper that the provision — Section 3 of the 14th Amendment — did not apply to Trump.