At Volokh Conspiracy, Steven Calabresi and Ilya Somin have an extended back-and-forth on whether the original meaning of Section 3 the Fourteenth Amendment encompasses the events of January 6, 2021. Here are the posts:
The January 6th Riot Was Not Like the Civil War (Calabresi)
January 6, 2021 Was Not an Insurrection (Calabresi)
The January 6 Attack was an Insurrection (Somin)
At the risk of oversimplifying, I think the core of the debate is that Professor Calabresi says that the original meaning of "insurrection" in Section 3 refers to something of equivalent scope to the civil war, and Professor Somin says it does not.
RELATED: At Just Security, Samuel Issacharoff (NYU) argues something akin to the Calabresi position, although from a less originalist perspective: Old Constitutional Provisions and Presidential Selection: The folly of exhuming Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
I think the Supreme Court will notice that a number of very prominent left-leaning law professors are expressing reservations about the Trump disqualification project, including Issacharoff, Larry Lessig, Samuel Moyn, and Jed Rubenfeld.
Posted at 6:25 AM