On January 15, David E. Weisberg, a North Carolina attorney, filed this short amicus curiae brief in the U.S. Supreme Court.  It deals with the issue of whether the Fourteenth Amendment, section 3, applies to the office of President.   Section 3 mentions eligibility to hold office in Congress, or as a presidential elector, or to those who hold offices under the United States or any state, but doesn’t mention President or Vice-president.

Weisberg argues that the authors of Section Three, who were anti-confederate, didn’t mention President or Vice-president because they were only interested in preventing ex-confederates from holding office within certain states.  He writes that they had no fear that an ex-confederate would be elected president, because in the 1860 census the states that did not secede had a population of 23,000,000, whereas the states that seceded only had a population of 9,000,000.  Furthermore the population of the states that seceded included 3,500,000 ex-slaves, who would not have wanted to elect an ex-confederate.  Thus Weisberg provides a rationale for why the Section Three authors didn’t bother to include President.

Another amicus that makes an argument that Section Three doesn’t apply to President was was also filed on January 15.  It is by Law Professor Kurt T. Lash .  See it here.