The use of ‘Officer’ in the Constitution and temporally adjacent sources:
It is important to note two preliminary issues: (1) that the Constitution was written in plain language to be understandable by the lay people, the scantly educated farmers, tailors, blacksmiths, etc. comprising “We the People;” and (2) the drafters didn’t have computers or word processors but were instead writing the Constitution by hand and couldn’t find or replace globally with relative ease.
Preamble: “We the People…”
The Constitution starts with “We the People” the source of power, the most important part.
Article I, Section 2: “The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers…” (Emphasis added).
“Speaker and other Officers” : A plain reading is such that the Speaker of the House is an Officer – chosen by The House of Representatives, the most people-adjacent and most important as first enumerated branch. Thus, contrary to the Colorado decision at Paragraph 311, not ALL “officers” are appointed or “commissioned” by the President – nor is the President the most important or people-adjacent branch or officer.
Article I, Section 3: ”The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate… The Senate shall chuse their other Officers…” (Emphasis added).
Thus, from a plain reading, the Vice President – acting as President of the Senate, shall be an Officer. Contrary to the Colorado decision, neither the Speaker of the House nor the Vice President (both “Officers”) are appointed or “commissioned” by the President.
Article VI, Section 3: “The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers… shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution…” (Emphasis added).
The Colorado decision at Paragraph 301 states that the 14th Amendment lists the people to which it applies in decreasing order of importance, and finds that surely the President wouldn’t be listed after less important positions or lumped in with a group in a catchall phrase. However, the very nature of our Constitution was to depart from having a King or an executive of supreme import. Rather, We the People are the most important (for the people, by the people) and other branches are enumerated in importance with respect to adjacency to The People. For example, the President and Executive are NOT defined in the preamble or the First Article, but are relegated to the Second Article. The enumeration in Article VI and the 14th Amendment follows this order of importance subordinating the president AFTER the 1)Senators, 2)Representatives, 3)Members of the several state Legislatures, and only then 4) “all executive…Officers”. But nonetheless requires that “all executive and judicial officers” must take an Oath “to support this Constitution.”
Article I, Section 8: “…all Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.” (Emphasis added).
The powers are vested in “Officer[s] thereof” meaning Officers of the United States… including Speaker of the House, President of the Senate, and President of the United States.
Article II, Section 1: “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office….” (Emphasis added).
“In Case of the Removal of the President from Office,… and the Congress may by Law provide for the Case of Removal, Death, Resignation or Inability, both of the President and Vice President, declaring what Officer shall then act as President, and such Officer shall act accordingly,…” (Emphasis added).
Thus, an “Officer” shall then act as President.
“Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:-“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of the President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” (Emphasis added).
Clearly then, this contemplates “his Office” the “Office of the President of the United States” -> an Officer of the United States.
Article II, Section 2: “The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy…”
Thus, the President holds both a civil Office and serves as the head Officer (“Commander in Chief”) of the Army and Navy (Military).
Article II, Section 2: ”[The President] shall have Power…shall appoint…all other Officers of the United States….” (Emphasis added).
Thus, clearly, from a plain reading the President shall appoint all *other Officers of the United States* … what “other?” “Other” clearly modifies the President and includes him in the category of “Officers of the United States” in the same manner as Article I where the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate are both “Officers” and each house shall respectively choose other “Officers.”
14th Amendment, Section 3: “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… who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States…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….” (Emphasis added).
The Colorado decision (Section C, Paragraph 301) states that the President (being of such importance) wouldn’t be listed after Senators, Representatives, or electors. (“The disqualified offices enumerated are presented in descending order starting with the highest levels of the federal government and descending downwards.”) However, this is precisely the order of the Constitution itself listing the most We-The-People-adjacent Offices first and only then describing the executive office in article II (after the Senators, Representatives, and electors in Article I precisely because the executive office is NOT a king or supremely important, but a limited executive deriving its power from the people and the people’s representatives.) The Court at Paragraph 304 states that “it is unpersuaded that the drafters intended to include the highest office in the Country in the catchall phrase “office…under the United States.”
At paragraph 306, the Court says that “[t]o refer to the President of the United States as a mere ‘civil officer’ is counterintuitive.” However, the President is described as both the civil Office AND as a military Officer (to wit: “Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy”).
Moreover, the Colorado opinion says they wouldn’t have lumped the President in with a group (or “catchall phrase”) as an “Officer of the United States…” but the President is clearly listed as BOTH holding a civil executive AND military “Office” under the United States and is lumped in under the catchall phrases throughout the Constitution. The President is limited, described only AFTER We the People and the People’s servants in both houses of congress and the President is obliged to serve, support, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution… thus his “office” is “under the United States.”
Thus, to say that the person who holds the Office of the President, who takes the Oath of Office, the head executive Officer, the head civil and military Officer is NOT an “Officer of the United States” and is exempt from any consequences for breach of their oath to The Constitution is absurd.
Fully enabled (or half-baked?) 