Talk:Officer of the United States

Recommended grammar and clarity edits to the good contributions of Sparkie82
to the incompatibility clause. Reading the middle paragraph through leaves much confusion still, in using "officer" interchangeably in contexts.

Recommended the following paragraph for Officer of the United States

Ineligibility Clause
Members of the United States Congress—the legislative branch of the United States government—are not "officers of the United States" and cannot simultaneously serve in Congress and as an officer of the United States under the "Ineligibility Clause" (also called the "Incompatibility Clause") of the Constitution (Article 1, Section 6, Clause 2). This provision states:

"No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office."

Because the Presidency and Vice Presidency are offices of the United States specifically defined by the Constitution and are usually filled by election, they are not within the scope of those offices contemplated by the appointments clause. However, under the ineligibility clause, at least one academic has raised questions as to whether a President or Vice President could also be a senator. This question arose when Senator Barack Obama was elected President. That academic concluded that the office of the President was not an “office under the United States” arguing among his reasons a specific interpretation of Article I, Section 3, Clause 7. Although President Obama did resign his Senate seat before taking the oath of office, some contend that he was not required to do so. In 2021, Vice President Kamala Harris also resigned her Senate seat before being sworn in, further cementing the precedent that the nation's top officers cannot also simultaneously be members of Congress. The issue has never been decided or even come before the courts.

Ineligibility Clause2
Members of the United States Congress—the legislative branch of the United States government—are not "officers of the United States" and cannot simultaneously serve in Congress and as an officer of the United States under the "Ineligibility Clause" (also called the "Incompatibility Clause") of the Constitution (Article 1, Section 6, Clause 2). This provision states:

"No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office."

The ineligibility clause precludes members of Congress from also holding an office under the United States, and at least one academic has raised questions as to whether a President or Vice President could also be a senator. This question arose when Senator Barack Obama was elected President. That academic concluded that the office of the President was not an “office under the United States” arguing among his reasons a specific interpretation of Article I, Section 3, Clause 7 would render that clause in violation of the legal principle of surplusage by including both the "President" and "civil officers" in the same provision of law. He concluded that if the President was a civil officer, a court would be required to violate that principle and assume the word "President" is superfluous, opening up many contradictions within the Constitution. Although President Obama did resign his Senate seat before taking the oath of office, some contend that he was not required to do so. In 2021, Vice President Kamala Harris also resigned her Senate seat before being sworn in, further cementing the precedent that the nation's top officials cannot also simultaneously be members of Congress, which if it were to occur may open up serious concerns over the separation of powers between the executive and the legislature. The issue has never been decided or even come before the courts.

--Frobozz1 (talk) 21:24, 8 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your edit, Frobozz. I must admit that I had missed that discussion in Free Enterprise Fund when I made my edit. However, the scope of that case and the specific referenced quote limit the opinion of the definition of "Officers of the United States" to the Appointments Clause, so references in other sections may have different interpretations, e.g., the reference in the 14th Amendment which was written much later and which mentions broadly "any office" but then in a conditional parallel construction refers to "officers". Also, the word "office" is differentiated other sections and appears to have a broader scope, e.g., the No Religious Test Clause and the impeachment judgement clause ("disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States"), the latter of which, when using the same surplusage canon, would appear to specify three categories of "office". Of course we'd need to find references for all that to include it in the article.


 * With regard to references, DOJ legal counsel opinions are often written specifically to support some contemporaneous need of the executive and therefore have less weight. When using those references we need to be sure to mention in the body of the article that the opinion is from the DOJ and not case law. I didn't read the Penn Law Review article but I think that's a minority view among scholars. In any case, you seem to have a handle on this so feel free to write it up as you like.  Sparkie82 ( t • c ) 00:29, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

"Officer under the United States" listed at Redirects for discussion
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Officer under the United States. The discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 February 20 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion.  Onel 5969  TT me 17:13, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

"Office under the United States" listed at Redirects for discussion
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Office under the United States. The discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 February 20 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion.  Onel 5969  TT me 17:14, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Delete speculative "Status of the President and Vice President" section entirely
The section drags a debate between scholars into the article and provides nothing factual or even widely held to the article that is supposed to be about officers. Its inclusion itself is a vast synthesis of "A + B therefore President is/is not and officer" and brings undue legitimacy to what is nothing more than a political debate. It was interesting as a trivia snippet in Ineligibility clause but now it is creating a narrative that the President/Vice president are constitutional officers and all the verified secondary sources may be wrong, creating conflicts with the rest of the verified information as well.

--47.196.197.231 (talk) 18:34, 26 February 2021 (UTC) CONSENSUS SOUGHT on the neutrality of the debate article vs. established court opinions. Do not repost before consensus. Thank you,

--47.196.197.231 (talk) 19:27, 27 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Your edits are replete with original research and synthesis here and the  Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board case is already discussed in a separate section that actually explains what the case was about and the Court's holding. But that's all besides the point given the sockpuppetry concerns here. Editing under an account and an IP address to evade scrutiny is against site policy. Please confirm whether you are . Neutralitytalk 21:21, 27 February 2021 (UTC)
 * No sir, my edits exactly cite the debate arguments in an effort to balance the highly "President is an Officer" narrative being attempted here and throughout to be honest. There are facts established in case law, which belong in a discussion about the legal application of one term of art; and there are academic debates alleging the courts have been wrong, which are due low weight if they have value at all as a matter of trivia. And there is a third category of edits which employ directly misleading citations such as presenting an informational CRS report (which includes its own disclaimer of validity) as facts. Verifiability and source credibility are quite difficult to maintain when everyone wants to paint their own narrative into a topic which has been settled law over 180 years now; albeit occasionally applied dubiously within political bodies. A senator was unconstitutionally disqualified under "treason" for publishing a letter about Lincoln as the 14th amendment was being ratified.

It would be greatly helpful if what is thought to be OR were tagged that I may point out the proper quote within my cite, I assure you my citations are accurate if perhaps difficult to spot. To wit: the Calabresi exact quote I balanced with was deleted; That leaves us with Tillman’s argument about the Commissions Clause, where, as I conceded in my Opening Statement, he has a valid point. The Commissions Clause commands that the President must commission all the officers of the United States, and yet no President has commissioned himself, his successor, or his Vice President. Thus, Tillman has an argument from practice that Presidents and Vice Presidents either have not been regarded as being officers of the United States or at least that the question has been embarrassingly overlooked. Now this is spun to assume that "100% from practice" is somehow not meaningful. The fact is, we call that precedent and it is most meaningful. So why can't we achieve some neutral presentation if the debate must be included?

In any case, what value doe this debate add? It has been in circulation over a dozen years and has reams of advocacy and critical papers derived from it, but in the end we can paint any picture we want about the opinions. What we factually do know is that at no time has the Supreme Court ever considered anyone to be an officer of the United States unless they were commissioned under Article II. There are dozens of cases at this point. To the other point, in a month on Wiki I have yet to find the email button and I know some emails are waiting, so I ignore them. Likewise, I generally work incognito and only log in if I'm doing anything significant or voting. Likewise, I learned they already know me by my IP so I'm not exactly hiding anything. If it's important I can log in more readly.

--Frobozz1 (talk) 23:48, 27 February 2021 (UTC)