"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. "

What a terrible ruling. In what world is the president not a civil or military office? It’s the highest civil and the highest military office! And they obviously take the oath to uphold the constitution too! This is a travesty.

The other rulings had a somewhat point with primaries technically being a party thing that’s a private organization and not the real ballot. But this judge is just wiping their ass with the constitution.

I obviously agree that the Presidency should be included in the 14th Amendment, but

In what world is the president not a civil or military office?

Presumably the same world that led the drafters to mention Senators and Representatives separately as well.

Or! Not and, or. It’s saying you can’t be a representative or senator or hold any civil or military offices (members of the executive branch, ie the president). Were they supposed to go and list every single position in the executive department within the text of the amendment? That’d be ridiculous. That’s why they wrote all civil offices, all military offices, anyone who swears to uphold the constitution. You’d have to bend over backwards logically here to say the presidency isn’t a civil or military office that swears to uphold the constitution. It obviously is. What else would a civil or military office be? So I guess we need a new amendment that lists each individual job title of the tens of thousands of jobs within the executive department to satisfy this judge and you?

Were they supposed to go and list every single position in the executive department within the text of the amendment?

That’s not what I’m saying.

The question I would be asking is, “Why were Senators and Representatives mentioned explicitly?”, to which my answer would probably be that the drafters didn’t consider the Senate or House to be ‘civil or military offices’. Otherwise, why bother? This is an Amendment to the Constitution ffs, there shouldn’t be a single superfluous word in it. My next question would then be, “If the drafters didn’t consider the Senate or House to be ‘civil or military offices’, would they have considered the Presidency to be one?”, to which my answer would probably be ‘no’ despite very much wanting it to be ‘yes’.

My third question would be, “Did they just forget or something?”, and my answer would be, “Gee I sure hope so. Better assume they did.”, which is why I’m not a judge.

If the presidency isn’t a civil or military office, nothing is. It’s literally the highest one of both categories. Civil officers are any positions within the executive or judicial branches. The positions that are singled out exclusively are to highlight that these are also included, as if they only said civil or military offices, it could be implied that the amendment would only apply to the executive branch and judicial branch. The electors from the electoral college to select the president are even singled out too, as again they are totally seperate from the executive branch, it was just making clear that these would be included in addition.