Offices and Officers of the Constitution, Part IV: The “Office . . . under the United States” Drafting Convention
[This post is co-authored with Seth Barrett Tillman.]
Last week we shared the third-installment in our ten-part series on the offices and officers of the Constitution. Here, we will share the near-final draft of the fourth installment: Offices and Officers of the Constitution, Part IV: The “Office . . . under the United States” Drafting Convention. The phrase “Office . . . under the United States” is used in four provisions of the Constitution of 1788: the Elector Incompatibility Clause, the Impeachment Disqualification Clause, the Incompatibility Clause, and the Foreign Emoluments Clause. Tillman has written about this language since 2008, and we have written about the phrase “Office . . . under the United States” during the four years of the Foreign Emoluments Clause cases. This article provides a synthesis of some of that work.
Here is the abstract:
This Article is the fourth installment of a planned ten-part series that provides the first comprehensive examination of the offices and officers of the Constitution. The first installment introduced the series. The second installment identified four approaches to understand the Constitution’s divergent “office”- and “officer”-language. The third installment analyzed the phrase “Officers of the United States,” which is used in the Appointments Clause, the Impeachment Clause, the Commissions Clause, and the Oath or Affirmation Clause. This fourth installment will trace the history of the “Office . . . under the United States” draft
Article from Reason.com
