I don’t know how or whether this has any relevance to today’s proceedings and ballot disqualification. But it’s one place where history provides some guidance as to why an amendment is written the way it is. First, I don’t think it makes sense at all that the disqualification clause doesn’t apply to the President. It’s a very over-clever semantic argument that is on par with the logic behind the “independent state legislature” theory: a hyper-literal focus on text without context which has the effect of producing an outcome no one could have intended. But — and this is a significant “but” — it is true that presidents were not what the authors of the language were most concerned about. And that matter of focus may have impacted how they structured the language.

Our team will be live-blogging today’s SCOTUS Trump ballot disqualification hearing here. The hearing is scheduled to start at 10 AM.

I wrote earlier that I doubted Speaker Mike Johnson was in any trouble. Because the kind of people who fire GOP Speakers don’t think any of this clown show is a problem. I think this is obvious. But in case you had any doubt, Freedom Caucus dead-ender Clay Higgins tweeted this afternoon that far from being a clownish failure Johnson is more like an Iron Age hero walking right off the pages of Homer. “Mike Johnson is enduring withering attacks from every faction. Iron sharpeneth iron. He’s getting stronger.”

So there you go. Mike Johnson is likely just fine.

A number of you asked me last night and this morning if we may be coming to the end of Mike Johnson’s speakership. After yesterday’s two big fails, is he almost done? In any normal universe the combined events of the last 72 hours would likely lead to Johnson resigning if not in disgrace then in some mix of humiliation and … well, resignation. But this isn’t a normal universe. It’s the 2024 House Republican caucus. So I don’t think he’s going anywhere. I’m not sure any of the key people even think there’s a problem.