<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"One much-debated way out of the debt-ceiling stalemate is for President Obama to raise the limit by himself by invoking an obscure provision in the 14th Amendment. The New York Times&amp;apos; legal reporter Adam Liptak runs down the pros and cons of this &amp;quot;constitutional escape hatch.&amp;quot; Bill Clinton recently said that, were he still presdent, he&amp;apos;d invoke the 14th in a heartbeat, but Obama seemed seemed to rule it out. &amp;quot;I have talked to my lawyers,&amp;quot; he said. &amp;quot;They are not persuaded that that is a winning argument.&amp;quot; (Liptak detects some wiggle room between the lines there.) One argument against unilateral action by the president, says Liptak, is that it&amp;apos;s not clear the nation&amp;apos;s creditors would be sufficiently reassured to go on lending. Then there&amp;apos;s the likelihood that the courts would weigh in if Obama acts alone. On the other hand, that&amp;apos;s not certain, notes Liptak; and anyway, while the president &amp;quot;can move quickly &amp;#x2026; court cases take time.&amp;quot; A more serious danger for Obama is that Congress would move to impeach him. But while House could convict, it&amp;apos;s unlikely the Senate would. Legal scholars, meanwhile, are divided on the question, but plenty are supportive of the president&amp;apos;s prerogative. Some say the provision doesn&amp;apos;t even apply to the president, only to Congress; others that the president may do what he wants in an emergency, with or without the authority of the 14th Amendment. And then there&amp;apos;s the school of thought known as &amp;quot;popular constitutionalism,&amp;quot; according to which &amp;quot;the meaning of the Constitution &amp;#x2026; is in the end what the public believes it to be.&amp;quot; In other words, Obama could move unilaterally and the American people would in due let him know, by democratic means, whether their understanding of the provision jibes with theirs.\r\n&amp;#x2022; &amp;apos;The 14th Amendment, the Debt Ceiling and a Way Out&amp;apos; [Adam Liptak, New York Times]"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/debt-ceiling-and-14th-amendment-how-obama-could-go-it-alone-20110725>