No.

23-719

In The
Supreme Court of the United States

DONALD J. TRUMP,
Petitioner,
V.

NORMA ANDERSON, ET AL,

Appellees.

On Writ of Certiorari to the

Colorado Supreme Court

BRIEF OF AMICUS CURIAE VIVEK RAMASWAMY

IN SUPPORT OF PETITIONER

STEVE ROBERTS JONATHAN LIENHARD

EDWARD WENGER Counsel of Record
HOLTZMAN VOGEL PHILLIP M. GORDON
BARAN TORCHINSKY & HOLTZMAN VOGEL
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 i

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................. i

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES .........................................iii
INTEREST OF AMICUS CURIAE .............................. 1
SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT ....................................... 1
ARGUMENT................................................................... 2
I. President Trump’s opponents have resorted to
antidemocratic methods because they doubt that
they can beat him in a fair election. .......................... 2
A. In judicial silence, President Trump’s
political opponents have sensed opportunity. ...... 3
B. The decision below incentivizes
inconsistent partisan determination of Section 3
ballot access decisions. ........................................... 6
C. Adopting the Colorado Supreme Court’s
theory will require this Court to adjudicate
political questions. .................................................. 9
1. Presidents Carter and Reagan. ................ 11
2. President Clinton....................................... 12
3. President Obama ....................................... 14
II. The President is not an “officer of the United
States” within the meaning of the Fourteenth
Amendment. .............................................................. 16
A. Neither the drafters of the Fourteenth
Amendment nor this Court have addressed
whether the Disqualification Provision of Section
3 applies to former Presidents. ............................ 16
B. The Constitution’s plain text demonstrates
that the President is not an “officer.” .................. 20
 ii

C. Traditional canons of construction support

the plain reading of Section 3’s text. ................... 23
1. Expressio unius est exclusio alterius. ....... 23
2. Noscitur a sociis and ejusdem generis. ..... 25
3. Congress does not hide elephants in
mouseholes......................................................... 26
D. Structural considerations further support
the President’s unique constitutional status. ..... 27
CONCLUSION ............................................................. 31
 iii

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

Cases
Page(s)
Alden v. Maine,
527 U. S. 706 (1999) .............................................. 18

Baker v. Carr,
369 U. S. 186 (1962) .............................................. 10

Cohen v. California,
403 U. S. 15 (1971) .................................................. 5

Conroy v. Aniskoff,
507 U. S. 511 (1993) .............................................. 17

Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid,

141 S. Ct. 1163 (2021) ........................................... 23

FCC v. AT&T Inc.,

562 U. S. 397 (2011) .............................................. 22

Financial Oversight & Mgmt. Bd. for P.R. v. Aurelius

Inv., L.L.C. ,
140 S. Ct. 1649 (2020) ........................................... 22

Ford v. United States,

273 U. S. 593 (1927) .............................................. 24

Free Enter. Fund v. Public Co. Acctg. Oversight Bd.,

561 U. S. 477 (2010) .............................................. 31

Fulton v. City of Phila.,

141 S. Ct. 1868 (2021) ........................................... 27

Gustafson v. Alloyd Co.,

513 U. S. 561 (1995) .............................................. 25
 iv

Humphrey's Ex'r v. United States,

295 U. S. 602 (1935) .............................................. 30

Jennings v. Rodriguez,
583 U. S. 281 (2018) .............................................. 23

Kisor v. Wilkie,
139 S. Ct. 2400 (2019) ........................................... 23

Mississippi v. Johnson,
71 U. S. (4 Wall.) 475 (1867) ................................. 30

Myers v. United States,

272 U. S. 52 (1926) ................................................ 30

Ramos v. Louisiana,
140 S. Ct. 1390 (2020) ............................................. 3

Trump v. Mazars USA, L.L.P.,

140 S. Ct. 2019 (2020) ........................................... 30

Washington State Dep’t of Soc. & Health Servs. v.

Guardianship Estate of Keffeler ,
537 U. S. 371 (2003) .............................................. 25

Whitman v. American Trucking Ass’ns,

531 U. S. 457 (2001) .............................................. 26

Yates v. United States,

574 U. S. 528 (2015) .............................................. 25

Constitutional Provisions

U. S. Const., Amdt. 14, §3 ................................................

........................................... 9, 10, 12, 13, 15, 17, 24, 25

 v

U. S. Const. art. I, §2 ................................................... 20

U. S. Const. art. I, §8 ............................................ 10, 20

U. S. Const. art. II, §1 .......................................... 20, 30

U. S. Const. art. II, §2 ................................................. 20

U. S. Const. art. II, §3 ................................................. 20

U. S. Const. art. II, §4 ................................................. 21

U. S. Const. art. VI ...................................................... 21

Other Authorities

2 Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of

the United States (Boston, Hilliard, Gray, and Co.
1833) .......................................................................... 21

A. Scalia & B. Garner, Reading Law (2012) .............. 23

Baude & Paulsen, The Sweep and Force of Section 3,

172 U. Pa. L. Rev. (forthcoming 2024) .................... 27

Blackman & Tillman, Is The President An “Officer of

the United States” for Purposes of Section 3 of the
Fourteenth Amendment?, 15(1) N.Y.U. J.L. &
Liberty 1 (2021)......................................................... 19

Blackman & Tillman, Sweeping and Forcing the

President Into Section 3, 28 Tex. Rev. L. & Po. 30
(forthcoming 2024).................................................... 17

C. Leahy, President Without a Party: The Life of John

Tyler (2020) ............................................................... 19
 vi

C. Savage, Agent Who Supervised Gun-Trafficking

Operation Testifies on His Failings, N.Y. Times
(July 26, 2011),.......................................................... 14

C. Savage, J. Martin, & M. Haberman, Why A Second

Trump Presidency May Be More Radical Than His
First, N.Y. Times (Dec. 4, 2023), ............................... 3

CNN, Maine Official Who Removed Trump From

Ballot Responds to Fierce Criticism .......................... 7

Cong. Globe, 39th Cong. 1st Sess. 2899 (1866) .......... 17

Council on Foreign Relations, The Taliban in

Afghanistan (last updated Jan. 19, 2023) .............. 11

D. Burlingame, The Clintons’ Terror Pardons, Wall St.

J. (Feb. 12, 2008) ................................................ 12, 13

J. Scahill, 1979-1989: Response to the Soviet Invasion

of Afghanistan, The Intercept (Apr. 27, 2021) ....... 15

L. Lessig, Excluding the President From Section 3 Is

Not “Absurd,” Medium (Dec. 21, 2023) ..................... 4

Lash, The Meaning and Ambiguity of Section Three of

the Fourteenth Amendment (Dec. 28, 2023) ... 16, 18,
19

Lawfare, Tracking Section 3 Trump Disqualification

Challenges ................................................................... 4

MSNBC, ME Sec. of State: The Constitution “Does

Not Tolerate An Assault on the Peaceful Transfer of
Power” (Jan. 6, 2024) .................................................. 7
 vii

R. Kagan, A Trump Dictatorship Is Increasingly

Inevitable. We Should Stop Pretending., Wash. Post
(Nov. 30, 2023) ........................................................... 2

The Federalist No. 51 (Sweetwater Press ed. 2010) (J.

Madison) .......................................................... 8, 28, 29

The Federalist No. 69 (Sweetwater Press ed. 2010) (A.

Hamilton) .................................................................. 21

The Federalist No. 70 (Sweetwater Press ed. 2010) (A.

Hamilton) ...................................................... 22, 28, 29

The Federalist No. 76 (Sweetwater Press ed. 2010) (A.

Hamilton) .................................................................. 21

The Federalist No. 77 (Sweetwater Press ed. 2010) (A.

Hamilton) .................................................................. 22

W. Inboden, The Peacemaker: Ronald Reagan, The

Cold War, and the World on the Brink (2022) ....... 11

Y. Levin, A Time To Build: From Family and

Community to Congress and the Campus, How
Recommitting to Our Institutions Can Revive the
American Dream (2020) ............................................. 8
 1

INTEREST OF AMICUS CURIAE

Amicus Curiae Vivek Ramaswamy is a

Republican candidate for President of the United
States. Mr. Ramaswamy has a unique perspective as
a competitor in the Republican presidential primary
race who has satisfied all the constitutional
qualifications, and who has also qualified for the
Colorado Republican Presidential Primary ballot. He
has a profound interest in preserving the right of
every voter to cast a ballot for the candidate that best
suits his or her preferences, even if that candidate is
someone other than himself.

SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT

The conclusion is inescapable: President

Trump’s political opponents have sought to disqualify
him from the ballot in multiple states because they
fear they cannot beat him in a free and fair election.
Needless to say, the distress of competing against a
formidable opponent cannot justify disqualification
under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. And
the consequences of affirming the Colorado Supreme
Court’s decision will extend far beyond the dispute
over Donald Trump’s eligibility.

Specifically, this Court’s blessing of the lower

court’s interpretation of Section 3 will warp incentives
for state decision-makers and voters alike. For
secretaries of state and state supreme court justices,
the path to national notoriety will be illuminated: To
enhance your credibility among co-partisans, simply
concoct a reason to declare a disfavored presidential
candidate of the opposing party ineligible to run for
office. For voters, the message will be equally clear:
 2

Scour the records of disfavored candidates for

speeches containing martial rhetoric, or even policies
that had unintended consequences, and then file
challenges under Section 3. The number of Section 3
complaints will proliferate, as will the number of
divergent outcomes.

But even if the Court finds these consequences

unconvincing, there are strong textual and structural
reasons for rejecting the Colorado Supreme Court’s
reading of Section 3. Most obviously, the phrase
“officer of the United States” in the context of Section
3 has never been understood to cover the President of
the United States. The available constitutional
evidence, combined with the disruptive effects of
disqualification, should lead this Court to reverse the
decision below.

ARGUMENT

I. President Trump’s opponents have

resorted to antidemocratic methods
because they doubt that they can beat him
in a fair election.

There is an obvious reason why Donald Trump

is the only presidential candidate in American history
to face a challenge to his qualifications under Section
3: Democrats fear the potential consequences of
Trump’s election in 2024 more than any party has
ever feared the victory of an opposing candidate.
Histrionic screeds warning of a potential Trumpian
dictatorship have proliferated in the pages of
mainstream publications.1 And thanks to a deluge of

1 See, e. g., R. Kagan, A Trump Dictatorship Is Increasingly

Inevitable. We Should Stop Pretending., Wash. Post (Nov. 30,
 3

worsening polls, Democrats now lack confidence that

they can beat President Trump in a free and fair
election. So, they have resorted to grasping at any tool
that might allow them to avoid the humiliation of
defeat at his hands.

Because the Court has never pronounced upon

Section 3’s meaning, President Trump’s opponents
sense an opportunity. Mr. Ramaswamy suggests,
however, that the Court should refrain from opening
this Pandora’s box. Indeed, Americans’ faith in the
electoral process depends on this Court’s prudence.

Constitutional interpretation “isn’t supposed to

be the art of methodically ignoring what everyone
knows to be true.” Ramos v. Louisiana, 140 S. Ct.
1390, 1405 (2020). When evaluating this case, the
Court should first consider the consequences of
affirming the decision below.

A. In judicial silence, President Trump’s

political opponents have sensed
opportunity.

Although neither the Fourteenth Amendment’s

drafters nor this Court have addressed definitively
whether Section 3 applies to Presidents, see Section
II(A), infra, plaintiffs in multiple states have already
weaponized Section 3 in seriatim attempts to force

2023), https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/11/30/tru
mp-dictator-2024-election-robert-kagan/; C. Savage, J. Martin, &
M. Haberman, Why A Second Trump Presidency May Be More
Radical Than His First, N.Y. Times (Dec. 4, 2023),
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/04/us/politics/trump-2025-
overview.html.
 4

President Trump off the ballot.2 The reason for this

concerted effort is obvious: Given President Biden’s
historically low popularity and President Trump’s
consistently strong polling as a nominee, Trump’s
political opponents lack confidence in their ability to
prevail in a free and fair election.

These disqualification efforts are not based on a

defensible textualist reading of Section 3. See Section
II, infra. But even if they were, disqualifying the
candidate who is now leading in both primary and
general election polls would be tremendously
disruptive, obliterating public confidence in our
electoral system.

One need not admire Donald Trump to perceive

this matter objectively. Professor Lawrence Lessig has
written that, in his opinion, the reelection of Trump
“would be the worst political decision of the nation
since the Civil War.”3 Yet he has explained at length
why the historical record has convinced him that
Section 3 does not apply to the President. Id. Professor
Lessig is correct that “[o]ne does not need to like
Donald Trump in order to see that the law does not
preclude him from being a candidate.” Id. But judging
from the available evidence, one apparently does need
to dislike Trump to conclude otherwise.

2 For the status of each of these Section 3 challenges, see

Lawfare, Tracking Section 3 Trump Disqualification Challenges,
https://www.lawfaremedia.org/current-projects/the-trump-
trials/section-3-litigation-tracker.
3 L. Lessig, Excluding the President From Section 3 Is Not

“Absurd,” Medium (Dec. 21, 2023),

https://lessig.medium.com/excluding-the-president-from-section-
3-is-not-absurd-1c7a739fdf5b.
 5

Mr. Ramaswamy has advanced himself as a

candidate for the Republican presidential nomination
because he believes in the strength of his ideas and in
his ability to communicate the virtue of his platform
to voters. Arguably, the inclusion of a strong
competitor on state primary ballots will make it
harder for Mr. Ramaswamy to win the Republican
nomination. But he still opposes partisan efforts to
disqualify Trump because of the effect that such a
decision will have on the voters whose support they
are both courting. Vigorous political competition
ultimately benefits voters more than the candidates
permitted to compete for their support. Indeed, the
First Amendment:

[I]s designed and intended to remove

governmental restraints from the arena
of public discussion, putting the decision
as to what views shall be voiced largely
into the hands of each of us in the hope
that use of such freedom will ultimately
produce a more capable citizenry and
more perfect polity and in the belief that
no other approach would comport with
the premise of individual dignity and
choice upon which our political system
rests.

Cohen v. California, 403 U. S. 15, 24 (1971).

Those who seek to disqualify presidential

candidates from even appearing on the ballot
fundamentally distrust the American people. They
fear that the voters, if allowed to evaluate a full range
of options, may make the “wrong” choice as perceived
by political elites, and so they seek to deprive voters of
 6

that choice entirely. There is a better way, and it is

the route that Mr. Ramaswamy himself has chosen:
President Trump’s opponents should focus on
persuading voters that their candidate is the best
choice, and then trust that voters will choose the
candidate who best meets the moment.

B. The decision below incentivizes

inconsistent partisan determination of
Section 3 ballot-access decisions.

The Colorado Supreme Court’s decision has

opened the courthouse door to similar challenges
brought under the aegis of Section 3, and more
plaintiffs of all political persuasions will gladly accept
that invitation unless this Court cabins the
Amendment’s application. Moreover, in the absence of
clear guardrails, Section 3 will mean whatever a given
state official decides that it means. Section 3 will
become a patchwork law whose words will hold
different meanings depending on the constituency to
which the relevant state decisionmaker feels
accountable.

First, the decision below creates perverse

incentives for state decisionmakers, whether they are
state supreme court justices (as in Colorado) or
secretaries of state (as in Maine). Those two states
have already disqualified President Trump from
placement on their presidential primary ballots, and if
their actions are allowed to stand, more will follow.

If state officials are bestowed with this new

power to disqualify, they will use it enthusiastically.
When they do, it will undoubtably be in highly
partisan ways. As demonstrated over the last month,
 7

disqualifying a prominent presidential candidate of

the opposing party is a fast-track to national
notoriety. The Maine Secretary of State has already
been invited on CNN and MSNBC and given a
national platform to explain her decision—and,
simultaneously, to increase her name recognition.4
And although this time we have witnessed a state
supreme court composed of Democrat appointees vote
to disqualify a Republican presidential candidate, the
temptation to wield ballot-access decisions as a
partisan cudgel will be universal—and bipartisan.

The hypothetical is not particularly far-

fetched. Imagine a 2028 election in which state
officials proudly tout their willingness to disqualify
disfavored candidates belonging to the opposition
party as proof of their partisan bona fides and
“courage.” It is easy to foresee a world in which
candidates for reelection use Section 3 cases to curry
favor with their co-partisans while hiding behind the
Fourteenth Amendment, promoting their votes before
cheering crowds while somberly informing the media
that “I had no choice—the Constitution made me do
it.” Unless this temptation is quickly squelched, it is
not hard to imagine a presidential election in the not-
too-distant future in which each major-party
candidate will appear on ballots in only half of the

4 CNN, Maine Official Who Removed Trump From Ballot

Responds to Fierce Criticism,
https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2023/12/29/maine-secretary-
of-state-response-trump-ballot-cnntm-intv-sot-vpx.cnn (last
visited Jan. 9, 2024); MSNBC, ME Sec. of State: The Constitution
“Does Not Tolerate An Assault on the Peaceful Transfer of
Power” (Jan. 6, 2024), https://www.msnbc.com/ali-
velshi/watch/maine-sec-of-state-the-constitution-does-not-
tolerate-an-assault-on-the-peaceful-transfer-of-power-
201473605854.
 8

states, creating all manner of difficulties for election

administration and undermining public confidence in
the entire system.

Permitting the states to have the final say on

questions of presidential qualifications will also
encourage forum-shopping. A motivated group of
partisans could continue filing qualification
challenges to a presidential candidate under Section 3
in various state courts until they find a receptive
audience. The results of this scattershot approach to
evaluating candidate eligibility would inevitably be
inconsistent. Section 3 would have an entirely
different meaning in Montpelier than it does in
Cheyenne, not because of the merits of the underlying
question but because of the political goals of the
relevant decisionmakers.

If the lower court’s interpretation prevails,

ambition will no longer “counteract ambition.” The
Federalist No. 51, p. 396 (Sweetwater Press ed. 2010)
(J. Madison). Instead, the ambition of the state officer
who exercises the final say over ballot access will
trump the ambition of those who present themselves
as candidates for the consideration of the voters.
People will begin to “seek [these] platforms in order to
be seen taking the side of their tribe in these
struggles.” Y. Levin, A Time To Build: From Family
and Community to Congress and the Campus, How
Recommitting to Our Institutions Can Revive the
American Dream 35 (2020). Inevitably, “as we
increasingly come to assume that people working
within institutions are using them to perform and to
be seen, the underlying institutions [will] become
harder to trust.” Id., at 36.
 9

All these factors show that states are not

properly equipped to resolve the Section 3 inquiry. If
this Court allows them to do so, they will quickly
undermine the uniformity of federal law.

C. Adopting the Colorado Supreme

Court’s theory will require this Court
to adjudicate political questions.

Beyond the perverse effect on state

officeholders, the decision below also creates
dangerous incentives for the American people that
will in turn fuel jurisprudential headaches for this
Court. If Trump’s political opponents manage to get
him thrown off the ballot, then it will equate to a
clarion call to partisans nationwide. The number of
Section 3 challenges will proliferate even as the
allegations leveled against candidates become more
tenuous. There will be no limiting principle.

While some components of Section 3 lend

themselves to easy judicial interpretation, see Section
II supra, this is not true of every element. To find
President Trump ineligible under Section 3, the
Colorado Supreme Court had to determine that he
“engaged in insurrection or rebellion against” the
United States. U. S. Const., Amdt. 14, §3. Given space
constraints, Mr. Ramaswamy will not attempt to
define that phrase, but he does assert that neither the
lower court here nor secretaries of state in other
jurisdictions are properly equipped to do so either.
This Court’s precedent commands that a
nonjusticiable political question will typically exhibit
“a lack of judicially discoverable and manageable
 10

standards for resolving it,” as well as an

“impossibility of deciding without an initial policy
determination of a kind clearly for nonjudicial
discretion.” Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186, 217 (1962).
The presence of both factors here indicates that
Congress is the appropriate governmental body to
render judgment regarding Section 3—and, in the
absence of such a congressional determination, the
people should be permitted to decide for themselves
who will be their Chief Executive.

First, Article I expressly vests Congress with

the power “[t]o provide for calling forth the militia
to . . . suppress insurrections” and “[t]o declare war.”
U. S. Const., Art. I, §8. Section 3 also gives Congress
(but no other branch) a role in disqualification,
permitting the legislature to “remove such disability”
by supermajority vote. Id., Amdt. 14, §3. These clues
reveal “an initial policy determination of a kind
clearly for nonjudicial discretion.” Baker, 369 U. S., at
217.

Nor is it clear what standards a court—any

court—could use to decide these questions. The
inherent difficulty can be shown by evaluating some
examples from the recent past to see how the new
universe of Section 3 challenges might work in
practice. Consider: If a former President can be
disqualified under Section 3 based on actions taken by
his political supporters, could an incumbent President
also be disqualified from running for reelection based
on the unintended (yet perhaps foreseeable) violent
consequences of an intentional presidential policy? If
so, how will courts determine when a presidential
policy goes so far off the rails that it implicates Section
3?
 11

Mr. Ramaswamy understands that each of

these examples will strike the Court as tenuous or
even absurd. That’s because they are. But this
reductio ad absurdum underscores that there are no
judicially manageable standards to resolve the Section
3 question at the heart of this case.

1. Presidents Carter and Reagan.

In 1980, President Carter “signed a finding

authorizing the covert provision of arms to the Afghan
mujahideen fighting against the Soviet occupation of
their country.” W. Inboden, The Peacemaker: Ronald
Reagan, The Cold War, and the World on the Brink 88
(2022). The Reagan administration continued the
Carter aid program and eventually increased the level
of military support to $100 million with congressional
authorization, supplying increasingly lethal weapons
to the Afghan resistance. Id., at 210.

After the Soviet military withdrew from

Afghanistan in 1989, many of the mujahideen fighters
who had benefited from American largesse formed a
new organization: The Taliban.5 This violent group
gained control of the entire country in 1996 after a
bloody four-year civil war and proceeded to offer a safe
haven to the al-Qaeda terrorists who planned the
September 11th attacks. The Taliban then “refused to
hand over Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the
9/11 attacks.” Id.

Now imagine that political opponents of

President Carter in 1980 or President Reagan in 1984

5Council on Foreign Relations, The Taliban in Afghanistan (last

updated Jan. 19, 2023),
https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/taliban-afghanistan.
 12

had filed challenges to their eligibility under Section

3, predicated upon the notion that each man had
deliberately pursued a policy of delivering dangerous
weapons to a group of dangerous men who intended—
once they had gained the necessary capability—to
attack United States government targets (which,
tragically, did in fact come to pass). In short, the
complaint would allege that these administrations
had intentionally “given aid or comfort to the
enemies” of the United States, with deadly
consequences. U. S. Const., Amdt. 14, §3. Although
the long-term effects of this bipartisan policy may not
have been clear at the time (and were not intended by
either Reagan or Carter), the inherent risks are
obvious in hindsight.

2. President Clinton.

On August 11, 1999, President Clinton granted

clemency to sixteen incarcerated members of the
Puerto Rican terrorist group Armed Forces of
National Liberation (“FALN”).6 According to the FBI,
this group was responsible for “146 bombings and a
string of armed robberies—a reign of terror that
resulted in nine deaths and hundreds of injured
victims.” Id. Bombs linked to FALN were detonated
“at FBI headquarters in Manhattan and the federal
courthouse in Brooklyn,” thereby directly targeting
federal government offices and personnel. Id.

President Clinton’s claims that “the sentences

were disproportionate to the crimes” was quickly
belied by the U.S. Sentencing Commission, which

6D. Burlingame, The Clintons’ Terror Pardons, Wall St. J. (Feb.

12, 2008),
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB120277819085260827.
 13

“affirmed a pre-existing Justice Department

assessment” that all the sentences the President
commuted were “in line with sentences imposed in
other cases for similar terrorist activity.” Id. One
federal prosecutor who had worked to convict the men
wrote that “[t]he conspirators made every effort to
murder and maim. . . . A few dedicated federal agents
are the only people who stood in their way.” Id. By any
definition, these terrorists were enemies of the United
States who sought to attack U.S. government targets.

If President Clinton had been eligible to run for

reelection in 2000, could his political opponents have
filed a Section 3 challenge to his eligibility based on
those commutations? It would not have been difficult
to marshal evidence that the FALN terrorists were
dangerous men; practically the entire federal
government opposed President Clinton’s action. The
FBI had uncovered evidence that “two of those on the
clemency list . . . intended [] an imminent attack at a
U.S. military installation” before their arrests. Id.
Both chambers of Congress passed resolutions
condemning the commutations by overwhelming
bipartisan margins (95–2 in the Senate, 311–41 in
the House). Id. With this mountain of evidence on
their side, President Clinton’s opponents could have
attempted to establish that releasing these dangerous
men from prison even when they had never requested
clemency constituted the President unilaterally
“giv[ing] aid or comfort to the enemies” of the United
States. U. S. Const., Amdt. 14, §3.
 14

3. President Obama.

From late 2009 to early 2011, the Obama

Administration, operating through the Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, conducted
“Operation Fast and Furious,” a program focused on
“monitoring—rather than intervening with—
particular people who continued to acquire weapons
that ended up with [Mexican drug] cartels.”7
Essentially, the ATF allowed cartel-connected buyers
to purchase firearms in the hope that the ATF could
then trace those weapons back to cartel leaders and
make arrests. One of these “straw buyers” that was
monitored but not arrested “bought more than 600 of
the 2,000 weapons linked to the ring.” Id.

Once again, a federal policy of providing

dangerous weapons to a group of dangerous men
ended with predictably tragic consequences: “[G]uns
linked to Fast and Furious straw buyers were found at
the scene where a Border Patrol agent was killed in
December 2010.” Id. And in that instance, the
unintended (but fatal) consequences of the operation
were revealed before the President who implemented
the policy competed as a candidate for reelection.

If political opponents of President Obama had

then filed a challenge to his eligibility predicated on
Section 3, this Court would have been forced to weigh
in. Again, the situation would have demanded a
judicial determination of whether a presidential policy
that resulted in the death of a federal agent rose to

7C. Savage, Agent Who Supervised Gun-Trafficking Operation

Testifies on His Failings, N.Y. Times (July 26, 2011),
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/27/us/politics/27guns.html.
 15

the level of “giv[ing] aid or comfort to the enemies” of

the United States. U. S. Const., Amdt. 14, §3.

To make the question less hypothetical and

even more contemporarily relevant, President Biden
voted for President Reagan’s request to increase
military aid to Pakistan in 1981 (and thereby
facilitated the mujahideen resistance against the
Soviets)8, and he also served as Obama’s Vice
President when Operation Fast and Furious was
conducted. If this Court blesses the Colorado Supreme
Court’s overly broad reading of Section 3, it could
throw both major-party nomination processes into
disarray. To be certain, multiple eligibility challenges
can—and will—be lodged against the leading
candidates, with a rapidly shrinking window within
which the Court can fully adjudicate those challenges.

***

Make no mistake: If the lower court’s decision

is allowed to stand, these are precisely the kinds of
Sections 3 challenges that partisan litigants will file.
There will be far more chaff than wheat. Courts are
not well-equipped to evaluate the wisdom of a given
presidential policy, particularly when the adverse
effects of such policies do not become apparent until
years after implementation. Without judicially
manageable standards, courts should defer to the
political process and the collective wisdom of the
American people as expressed through elections.

8J. Scahill, 1979–1989: Response to the Soviet Invasion of

Afghanistan, the Intercept (Apr. 27, 2021),
https://theintercept.com/2021/04/27/biden-soviet-invasion-
afghanistan-mujahideen-pakistan/.
 16

II. The President is not an “officer of the

United States” within the meaning of the
Fourteenth Amendment.

Even beyond the many prudential concerns

outlined above, there are also strong textual reasons
why Section 3 does not apply to a former President of
the United States who has never taken an oath for
any other state or federal office. Specifically, the
structure of the Constitution and traditional canons of
construction indicate that the President is not “an
officer of the United States” within the meaning of
Section 3.

A. Neither the drafters of the Fourteenth

Amendment nor this Court have
addressed whether the Disqualification
Provision of Section 3 applies to former
Presidents.

Proponents of the lower court’s disqualification

theory must first contend with the fact that some of
the earliest drafts of what became Section 3 did
expressly mention the President, but the final enacted
version does not. Rep. Samuel McKee of Kentucky
filed a proposed amendment on February 19, 1866,
that would have prohibited any person from
qualifying for or “hold[ing] the office of President of
the United States” if they “ha[d] been or shall
hereafter be engaged in any armed conspiracy or
rebellion against the government of the United
States[.]” See Lash, The Meaning and Ambiguity of
Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment (Dec. 28,
2023) (manuscript, at 15–16). This original draft is a
model of textual clarity, inarguably prohibiting any
 17

person who had engaged in rebellion9 or did so in the

future (whether they were an officeholder or not) from
qualifying as a candidate for President or holding
office.

The scope of the provision, however, narrowed

considerably through subsequent revisions. By the
time the final version reached the Senate floor, the
only debate over the application of the Amendment to
the Presidency focused on the offices that Section 3
prohibits a disqualified individual from holding (i. e.,
“any office, civil or military, under the United States”),
rather than which types of officeholders are
disqualified from holding those offices (i. e., “an officer
of the United States,” the phrase that Section II of
this brief analyzes in detail). U. S. Const., Amdt. 14,
§3. One Senator questioned why ex-Confederates
should not be “excluded from the privilege of holding
the two highest offices in the gift of the nation.” Cong.
Globe, 39th Cong. 1st Sess. 2899 (1866) (statement of
Sen. Johnson). A colleague then “call[ed] the Senator’s
attention to the words ‘or hold any office, civil or
military, under the United States,’” implying that
those words encompassed the President and Vice
President. Id. (statement of Sen. Morrill). Even if one
finds the opinion of a single Senator on this point
convincing—a dubious prospect given that “[w]e are
governed by laws, not by the intentions of legislators,”
Conroy v. Aniskoff, 507 U. S. 511, 519 (1993) (Scalia,

9 This assumes that President Trump’s speech is, first, not

protected by the First Amendment, and, second, qualifies as
“engag[ing] in insurrection or rebellion” within the meaning of
Section 3. Both are dubious contentions that have been rebutted
elsewhere. See, e. g., Blackman & Tillman, Sweeping and Forcing
the President Into Section 3, 28 Tex. Rev. L. & Po. 30
(forthcoming 2024) (manuscript, at 505–34).
 18

J., concurring)—no Senator raised any questions (or

offered any answers) about the meaning of the phrase
“an officer of the United States” within the context of
Section 3.

Although twenty-first century commentators

believe that the drafters of the Fourteenth
Amendment should have been concerned about the
prospect of reelecting an insurrectionist President,
that does not mean that those working in 1866
devoted any thought to that possibility. Drafters of
constitutional amendments are not omniscient.
Sometimes, “the [drafters]’ silence is best explained by
the simple fact that no one, not even the
[Amendment]’s most ardent opponents, suggested the
document might” have such an effect. Alden v. Maine,
527 U. S. 706, 741 (1999). In this case, “one can find
scattered examples of non-ratifiers who believed the
text applied to the President,” but that evidence is no
more dispositive than the opinions of the loudest
voices on Substack today. Lash, (manuscript, at 47–
48). “What this case requires are examples of framers
and ratifiers testimony sufficient to support a claim of
consensus understanding. Such a body of evidence
does not exist.” Id.

The oft-cited examples of John Tyler (President

from 1841–45) and John C. Breckinridge (Vice
President from 1857–61)—both of whom later joined
the Confederacy—shed no additional light on whether
Section 3 applies to former Presidents. Along with
their stints in the executive branch, both Tyler and
Breckinridge had also served several terms in the U.S.
Senate and House of Representatives. As such, they
had each taken the Article VI oath to support the
Constitution several times, meaning that Section 3
 19

did not need to be stretched to encompass them. As

has been ably demonstrated elsewhere, the language
of Section 3 overlaps with the language of the Article
VI Oath or Affirmation Clause. It does not, however,
overlap with the language of the Presidential Oath
prescribed in Article II, Section 1, Clause 8. Blackman
& Tillman, Is The President An “Officer of the United
States” for Purposes of Section 3 of the Fourteenth
Amendment?, 15(1) N.Y.U. J.L. & Liberty 1, 11–16
(2021). Therefore, Section 3 unambiguously
disqualified both Tyler and Breckinridge from further
government service without reference to their tenures
as President and Vice President.10

In short, proponents of disqualification look at

the scant evidence from the ratification debates and
see a blank slate on which they can project their
desire to sweep the President within the scope of
Section 3. The more reasonable conclusion—that the
drafters of Section 3 did not believe it was possible for
a President to engage in “insurrection or rebellion”
against the very government that he led—might be
less satisfying to modern ears, but it is more
consonant with reality. As Professor Lash’s historical
research has shown, the concept of the United States
electing an insurrectionist President in the immediate
aftermath of the Civil War “was no more than a
punchline to a joke,” and thus not realistic enough to
require a constitutional amendment. Lash,
(manuscript, at 48).

10For Tyler, who died in 1862 before the conclusion of the war,
Section 3 was a moot point. C. Leahy, President Without a Party:
The Life of John Tyler 411–12 (2020).
 20

B. The Constitution’s plain text

demonstrates that the President is not
an “officer.”

The word “officer” is used twelve times in the

seven articles of the U.S. Constitution. In none of
those twelve instances does the word encompass the
President of the United States. Instead, “officer” refers
to:

• officers elected by the House and Senate,

see U. S. Const., Art. I, §2;

• officers of the militia, see id., at Art. I,

§8;

• officers of the federal government in

general, see id.;

• persons within the line of presidential

succession (while specifically excluding
the President and Vice President), see
id., at Art. II, §1;

• the principal officers of executive

departments, see id., at Art. II, §2;

• officers of the federal government who

are appointed by the President, see id.;

• officers of the federal government who

are commissioned by the President, see
id., at Art. II, §3;

• federal civil officers who may be

removed from office via impeachment
(while specifically excluding the
 21

President and Vice President), see id. at

Art. II, §4; and

• “all executive and judicial officers”

required to take the Article VI oath,
which excludes the President who takes
the constitutionally prescribed Article II
oath, id., at Art. VI.

Early nineteenth century jurists were not

confused by this mountain of one-sided evidence.
Justice Joseph Story wrote that the Impeachment
Clause, which refers to “the President, Vice President,
and all civil officers of the United States (not all other
civil officers),” made clear that the only two persons
elected on a national ticket were “contradistinguished
from, rather than . . . included in the description of,
civil officers of the United States.” 2 Joseph Story,
Commentaries on the Constitution of the United
States 260 (Boston, Hilliard, Gray, and Co. 1833)
(emphasis added). Justice Story’s interpretation
remains the most natural way to read that text.

Although at least two Founding-era sources

conflict with this evidence, both provide a thin reed on
which to conclude that “officer” encompasses the
Nation’s Chief Executive. In Federalist No. 69,
Alexander Hamilton wrote that “[t]he President of the
United States would be an officer elected by the
people for four years,” in a passage in which he
contrasted the limited powers of the Presidency with
the “perpetual” reign of the English king. The
Federalist No. 69, p. 531 (Sweetwater Press ed. 2010)
(A. Hamilton); see also Federalist No. 76, p. 580
(discussing the power of appointment “in the hands of
that officer,” referring to the President).
 22

The likeliest explanation is that Hamilton was

speaking colloquially, altering his vocabulary for the
sake of readability. Elsewhere in the Federalist
Papers, he appeared to distinguish between the
President and “officers of the United States,” such as
when he declared that “[a] change of the Chief
Magistrate . . . would not occasion so violent or so
general a revolution in the officers of the government
as might be expected.” The Federalist No. 77, p. 584
(Sweetwater Press ed. 2010) (A. Hamilton) (emphasis
added). But most importantly, he only ever referred to
the President as an officer, and never as an officer of
the United States. The difference may sound
inconsequential to the unpracticed ear, but this Court
has counseled that “two words together may assume a
more particular meaning than those words in
isolation.” FCC v. AT&T, Inc., 562 U. S. 397, 406
(2011). The President may very well be an “officer” in
that he occupies a particular office, but the mere
“creation of an office . . . does not automatically make
its holder an ‘Officer of the United States.’” Financial
Oversight & Mgmt. Bd. for P.R. v. Aurelius Inv., LLC,
140 S. Ct. 1649, 1659 (2020). And in any event, these
references come from one of the foremost defenders of
robust executive power. See generally Federalist
No. 70.

In other words, faced with plain textual

evidence and treatises that pre-date the drafting of
the Fourteenth Amendment (all of which point in a
single direction), proponents of disqualification are
forced to rely solely on extratextual evidence in
support of their theory. This carries them no further
toward their extraconstitutional goal.
 23

C. Traditional canons of construction

support the plain reading of Section 3’s
text.

In recent decades, the Court has “redirect[ed]

the judge’s interpretive task back to its roots, away
from open-ended policy appeals and toward the
traditional tools of interpretation judges have
employed for centuries to elucidate the law’s original
public meaning.” Kisor v. Wilkie, 139 S. Ct. 2400, 2442
(2019) (Roberts, C. J., concurring). Unless the
application of “traditional tools of interpretation”
leads “to a ‘linguistically impossible’ or contextually
implausible outcome,” there is no need to resort to
alternative interpretive methods. Facebook, Inc. v.
Duguid, 141 S. Ct. 1163, 1171 (2021).

To be clear, here there is no need to go beyond

the unambiguous constitutional text. But to the extent
the Court finds traditional canons of statutory
construction useful while interpreting constitutional
text, the application of the following canons reinforces
Mr. Ramaswamy’s argument.

1. Expressio unius est exclusio alterius.

The Supreme Court has traditionally applied

the negative implication canon, which provides that
“[t]he expression of one thing implies the exclusion of
others (expressio unius est exclusio alterius).”
Jennings v. Rodriguez, 583 U. S. 281, 300 (2018)
(quoting A. Scalia & B. Garner, Reading Law 107
(2012)). “This maxim properly applies only
when . . . that which is expressed is so set over by way
of strong contrast to that which is omitted that the
contrast enforces the affirmative inference that that
 24

which is omitted must be intended to have opposite

and contrary treatment.” Ford v. United States, 273
U. S. 593, 611 (1927).

Section 3 lists four relevant categories of

persons who are subject to disqualification for
“engag[ing] in insurrection or rebellion”:
(1) “member[s] of Congress;” (2) “officer[s] of the
United States;” (3) “member[s] of any State
legislature;” and (4) “executive or judicial officer[s] of
any State.” U. S. Const., Amdt. 14, §3. The only one of
these categories that could encompass Donald Trump
is “officer[s] of the United States.” But to accept that
argument, the reader would have to assume that the
drafters of the Amendment crafted a specific category
for Members of Congress while declining to do the
same for the most powerful individual actor in our
constitutional system.

The drafters of the Fourteenth Amendment

were plainly aware of the possibility that a former
President could support a movement that took up
arms against the United States (indeed, John Tyler
had done so a mere five years earlier). It would have
been a simple matter to expressly list the President in
Section 3 for the sake of clarity and to be certain—and
yet the men who drafted the Amendment did no such
thing. Because the omission of the President from
Section 3 is so glaring, “that which is omitted must be
intended to have opposite and contrary treatment”
from the categories that were expressly enumerated.
Ford, 273 U. S., at 611. Here, that means the
President is treated differently than Members of
Congress and those individuals covered by the other
enumerated categories.
 25

2. Noscitur a sociis and ejusdem generis.

The principle of noscitur a sociis means that “a

word is known by the company it keeps,” and it is
applied to “avoid ascribing to one word a meaning so
broad that it is inconsistent with its accompanying
words[.]” Yates v. United States, 574 U. S. 528, 543
(2015) (quoting Gustafson v. Alloyd Co., 513 U. S. 561,
(1995)). Similarly, the ejusdem generis canon counsels
that “where general words follow specific words in a
statutory enumeration, the general words are
[usually] construed to embrace only objects similar in
nature to those objects enumerated by the preceding
specific words.” Id., at 545 (quoting Washington State
Dept. of Social and Health Servs. v. Guardianship Est.
of Keffeler, 537 U. S. 371, 384 (2008)).

The combined lesson of these two canons is that

a single item within a list does not carry a free-
floating meaning detached from the phrases that
surround it. Instead, the neighboring phrases “cabin
the contextual meaning of that term.” Id., at 543.
Therefore, the meaning of the phrase “officer of the
United States” in Section 3 is cabined by the three
other categories contained within the same list.

Two of the other categories in Section 3 refer to

some—but not all—of the individuals who work
within the federal and state legislative branches.
Section 3’s disqualification provision applies to “a
member of Congress” and “a member of any State
legislature,” but not to aides, staffers, clerks, and
other persons who serve those institutions. U. S.
Const., Amdt. 14, §3 (emphases added). Therefore, it
is not a reasonable interpretation of Section 3 to argue
that each enumerated category encompasses every
 26

person who works in the specified branch of

government.

Proponents of disqualification may counter that

the fourth category—“an executive or judicial officer of
any State”—is broad enough to swallow every person
employed by either branch in any state, and that the
“officer of the United States” category should be read
similarly to apply to every person within the federal
executive and judicial branches. This might be a
plausible reading were it not for the clear textual
evidence that the word “officer” never refers to the
President when used in the Constitution, and for the
structural considerations discussed in Section II(C)
infra that confer upon the President a unique status
in our constitutional regime.

3. Congress does not hide elephants in

mouseholes.

Finally, this Court’s precedent teaches that

“Congress . . . does not alter the fundamental details
of a [legislative] scheme in vague terms or ancillary
provisions—it does not, one might say, hide elephants
in mouseholes.” Whitman v. American Trucking
Assn’s, 531 U. S. 457, 468 (2001). In short,
extrapolating beyond the preceding canons that
instruct that Congress does not conceal the specific
within the vague, this canon goes a step further:
Congress certainly does not conceal significant
specific topics within inconsequentially vague
language.

It beggars belief that the drafters of the

Fourteenth Amendment genuinely intended to conceal
the “elephant” of the Presidency within the
 27

“mousehole” of the phrase “officer of the United

States,” and then expected that hidden meaning to be
obvious to future generations. Mr. Ramaswamy’s
interpretation is substantially more plausible.

D. Structural considerations bolster the

President’s unique constitutional
status.

Prominent legal commentators have called the

argument that the President is not “an officer of the
United States” an “absurdity.” Baude & Paulsen, The
Sweep and Force of Section 3, 172 U. Pa. L. Rev.
(forthcoming 2024) (manuscript, at 111). But the
argument is only “absurd” if one assumes that the
President is fundamentally no different from the
people who work for him—a bigger cog within the
executive branch than the others, perhaps, but a cog
all the same.

This reading is belied not only by the

constitutional text, but also by its structure. The
President is and always has been the only person
within our constitutional system who is vested with
all the power of a single branch of the federal
government. As discussed in Section I(A) supra,
“[w]hile history looms large in this debate, . . . the
historical record [is] more silent than supportive on
the question whether” the drafters of the Fourteenth
Amendment intended to apply Section 3 to former
Presidents. Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, 141 S. Ct.
1868, 1883 (2021) (Barrett, J., concurring). In a
situation where the historical record is not dispositive,
“the textual and structural arguments against”
Section 3 disqualification theory “are more
compelling.” Id.
 28

The full extent of the President’s power is set

out in the very first sentence of Article II: “The
executive power shall be vested in a President of the
United States of America.” U. S. Const., Art. 2, §1, cl.
1. The Constitution could not be clearer: One
individual (not multiple) is vested with all the
executive power (not merely some). Full stop. And
although the President has always enjoyed the power
to appoint officers to assist him in carrying out his
duties, see id., at §1, cl. 2, he need not do so. Indeed, a
President could lawfully (although perhaps not
practically) exercise all the executive power by himself
without making a single appointment.

Since the Constitution was ratified, there have

been those who claim “that a vigorous executive is
inconsistent with the genius of republican
government.” The Federalist No. 70, p. 534
(Sweetwater Press ed. 2010) (A. Hamilton). Those
people, to put it plainly, lost this argument in 1788.
As Hamilton explained in Federalist No. 70, the
Constitution, while responsive to such concerns, does
not endorse them. “A feeble Executive implies a feeble
execution of the government,” Hamilton posited, and
“a government ill executed, whatever it may be in
theory, must be, in practice, a bad government.” Id.,
at p. 535. The final constitutional design promotes
that same executive energy for which Hamilton
advocated.

Rather than hobbling the Executive from

within by limiting his powers or diffusing them
among multiple actors (a solution that was, for
example, imposed on Congress in the form of
bicameralism, see The Federalist No. 51, p. 397
(Sweetwater Press ed. 2010) (J. Madison)), the
 29

Founders chose a different approach to guarantee that

the Executive retained “competent powers” with
which he could fulfill his constitutional duties. The
Federalist No. 70, p. 535 (Sweetwater Press ed. 2010)
(A. Hamilton). The Founders’ answer to the dilemma
of executive power was “contriving the interior
structure of the government [so] that its several
constituent parts may, by their mutual relations, be
the means of keeping each other in their proper
places.” The Federalist No. 51, p. 394–95 (Sweetwater
Press ed. 2010) (J. Madison).

As Madison explained in Federalist No. 51, “the

great security against a gradual concentration of the
several powers in the same department[] consists in
giving to those who administer each department the
necessary constitutional means and personal motives
to resist encroachment of the others.” Id., at p. 396.
“Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The
interest of the man must be connected with the
constitutional rights of the place.” Id. In other words,
the Founders understood that the most effective way
to check the executive power is not to limit it outright
but to separately empower the legislature and the
judiciary so that they can jealously defend their own
prerogatives. The Founders’ separation of powers
reveals an intuitive understanding of human nature
that the Constitution’s critics have always lacked.

In no branch is “[t]he interest of the man” more

intimately “connected with the constitutional rights
of the place” than in the case of the Executive, and
this Court has consistently ratified the Founders’
broad conception of the executive power. Id. In a 2020
decision joined by seven Justices, Chief Justice
Roberts wrote for the majority that “[t]he President is
 30

the only person who alone composes a branch of

government.” Trump v. Mazars USA, LLP, 140 S. Ct.
2019, 2034 (2020) (emphasis added). Nor is this an
idea of recent vintage; this Court agreed during the
era of the Fourteenth Amendment’s ratification. See
Mississippi v. Johnson, 71 U. S. 475, 500 (1867)
(holding that while Cabinet officers “all constitute but
part of the executive department of the government,”
“the President is the executive department”)
(emphases added). The President alone is vested with
all the executive power, and he may parcel it out to
subordinate officers within the executive branch as he
sees fit.

Finally, the President and “officers of the

United States” are subject to different mechanisms for
accountability that confirm their distinctions.
Although the Appointments Clause does not expressly
address the removal question, this Court has agreed
for roughly a century that “the power of removing
those [officers] for whom [the President] can not
continue to be responsible” is “essential to the
execution of the laws[.]” Myers v. United States, 272
U. S. 52, 117 (1926). After all, “[i]f such appointments
and removals were not an exercise of the executive
power, what were they?” Id. Accordingly, the
President has long enjoyed the power to dismiss the
officers that he appoints (with certain exceptions, see
Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, 295 U. S. 602,
629 (1935)), from executive-branch service.

The President, of course, answers to a different

master. “He shall hold his office during the term of
four years, and, together with the Vice President,
chosen for the same term, be elected[.]” U. S. Const.,
Art. II, §1, cl. 1 (emphasis added). By contrast, as a
 31

five-Justice majority recently recognized, “[t]he

people do not vote for the ‘Officers of the United
States.’” Free Enter. Fund v. Public Co. Acct.
Oversight Bd., 561 U. S. 477, 497–98 (2010). Quite so.

The President is not a monarch, but he is not a

mere bureaucrat either (nor, for that matter, is he “an
officer of the United States”). Although the President
may not exercise legislative or judicial authority, he
may wield the entirety of the power vested in him
within the Executive’s constitutional sphere. From
1789 through the present day, an energetic Executive
has been vital to the constitutional structure, while
the appointment of “officers of the United States”
remains what it always has been: Optional.

For all these reasons, both those expressed in

the text and those implied by the structure of the
Constitution’s separation of powers, the President is
not “an officer of the United States” within the
meaning of Section 3, and so that constitutional
provision does not apply to him. For an individual like
Donald Trump who has taken only the Presidential
Oath and no other, this determination ends the
inquiry without the need for further analysis.

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, the Court should

reverse the decision of the Colorado Supreme Court.
 32

January 11, 2024 Respectfully submitted,

JONATHAN LIENHARD
Counsel of Record
PHILLIP M. GORDON
HOLTZMAN VOGEL
BARAN TORCHINSKY &
JOSEFIAK PLLC
15405 John Marshall
Highway
Haymarket, VA 20169
(540) 341-8808 (telephone)
(540) 341-8809 (facsimile)
jlienhard@holtzmanvogel.com

STEVE ROBERTS
EDWARD WENGER
HOLTZMAN VOGEL
BARAN TORCHINSKY &
JOSEFIAK PLLC
2300 N Street NW, Suite 643
Washington, DC 20037
(202) 737-8808 (telephone)
(540) 341-8809 (facsimile)

BRENNAN A. R. BOWEN
HOLTZMAN VOGEL
BARAN TORCHINSKY &
JOSEFIAK PLLC
Esplanade Tower IV
2575 East Camelback Road,
Suite 860
Phoenix, AZ 85016
(540) 341-8808 (telephone)
(540) 341-8809 (facsimile)
 33

Counsel for Amicus Curiae