Document Type

Article

Publication Date

4-2025

Abstract

Trump v. Anderson and Trump v. United States were two momentous decisions in a momentous Supreme Court term. Sharing then former — and now current — President Trump as a party, the decisions hold important implications for presidential power and accountability.

Anderson arose from a suit brought by Colorado voters to challenge Trump’s inclusion on the Republican primary ballot in that state. They argued that Trump organized and incited the mob that attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021, and disrupted the Electoral College vote count and certification. In their view, this disqualified him from serving as President under section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which (in relevant part) bars any person who took “an oath ... to support the Constitution ... [and then] engaged in insurrection or rebellion” from “hold[ing] any office ... under the United States.” The Colorado Supreme Court agreed, but the United States Supreme Court reversed, in a per curiam decision with four Justices concurring. It held that the states lack authority to enforce section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates for federal office, concluding that the Constitution assigns that responsibility to Congress.

Trump v. United States arose out of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation and a grand jury’s indictment of Trump for conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election “by spreading knowingly false claims of election fraud.” Trump sought to have the indictment against him dismissed on grounds of presidential immunity. The D.C. District Court and the D.C. Circuit both rejected this effort, but the Supreme Court vacated and remanded, this time by a 6–3 vote. It held that a former President enjoys absolute criminal immunity for exercises of core presidential powers and is at least presumptively immune for other official actions.

In Structural Logics of Presidential Disqualification, Professor Aziz Huq trains his eye primarily on Anderson, carefully dissecting the arguments offered by the per curiam opinion and demonstrating their substantial analytic inadequacy. Huq contends that “three distinct structural logics,” or arguments rooted in constitutional structure, underlie the opinion. These logics, sounding in “federalism, the separation of powers, and democracy,” are interwoven with prudential and consequentialist concerns about the national impact of state enforcement of section 3 against presidential candidates. Left by the wayside are the type of textual and historical arguments that the Roberts Court usually claims to prioritize in constitutional analysis. Huq chides the Court for its methodological inconsistency, but the bulk of his critique aims to show the analytic flaws in these structural arguments.

Disciplines

Constitutional Law | Law | President/Executive Department

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