Three former Attorneys General, Edwin Meese III, Michael B. Mukasey, and William P. Barr, together with me and B.U. law professor Gary Lawson, and with Citizens United, joined an amicus brief that was filed yesterday on Donald Trump’s side in Trump v. Anderson. This is the case which the Supreme Court is hearing on whether former President Donald J. Trump is disqualified from being re-elected as President by Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. The brief was written and filed by Gene C. Schaerr and Kenneth A. Klukowski (of Schaerr, Jaffe LLP) working with a first draft written by me.
The brief argues that, whatever one thinks about the events that occurred on January 6, 2021, Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment does not apply to the office of President of the United States. The brief also argues that Section 3 is not self-executing and requires congressional legislation to take effect. Finally, the brief argues that upholding the ruling of the Colorado Supreme Court would lead to chaos as multiple candidates for office would be excluded from running for office by judges and state election officials.
The three Attorneys General, on behalf of whom the amicus brief was filed, served under four different Republican Presidents: Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Donald J. Trump. This is a striking level of consensus among Attorneys General for Republican Presidents, who served at some point between 1985 to 2020, in favor of overturning the Colorado Supreme Court decision barring Donald Trump from being on the ballot in the current presidential election under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment.
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