politics

That is a pretty clearly different form of ambiguity, the ambiguity here is that the 14th amendment does not state how to enforce the law, and does not delegate that enforcement to the states.

Such power over governance, however, does not extend to federal officeholders and candidates. Because federal officers “ ‘owe their existence and functions to the united voice of the whole, not of a portion, of the people,’ ” powers over their election and qualifications must be specifically “dele- gated to, rather than reserved by, the States.” U. S. Term 7Cite as: 601 U. S. ____ (2024) Per Curiam Limits, Inc. v. Thornton, 514 U. S. 779, 803–804 (1995) (quoting 1 J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States §627, p. 435 (3d ed. 1858)). But nothing in the Constitution delegates to the States any power to en- force Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates. As an initial matter, not even the respondents contend that the Constitution authorizes States to somehow remove sitting federal officeholders who may be violating Section 3. Such a power would flout the principle that “the Constitu- tion guarantees ‘the entire independence of the General Government from any control by the respective States.’ ” Trump v. Vance, 591 U. S. 786, 800 (2020) (quoting Farmers and Mechanics Sav. Bank of Minneapolis v. Minnesota, 232 U. S. 516, 521 (1914)). Indeed, consistent with that princi- ple, States lack even the lesser powers to issue writs of mandamus against federal officials or to grant habeas cor- pus relief to persons in federal custody.

• quoting the majority ruling

But they do agree, that Section 3 provides no other method for enforcement, that is the ambiguity. But the ambiguity is easily resolved by section 5 of the 14th amendment:

The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

• section 5 of the 14th Amendment

Although only an individual State’s action is at issue here, the majority opines on which federal actors can enforce Section 3, and how they must do so. The majority announces that a disqualification for insurrection can occur only when Congress enacts a particular kind of legislation pursuant to Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amend- ment. In doing so, the majority shuts the door on other po- tential means of federal enforcement.

This is the minority then saying that's not clear enough, because while section 3 prescribes no means of enforcement and then section 5 explicitly says congress has the power to enforce it- they say it is ambiguous because it doesn't say only congress has the power to enforce it explicitly. I personally prefer to agree with the majority and say since it doesn't give random people the right to depose the president- then they probably don't have the right unless new legislation by Congress who does explicitly have the power says they do.

The Constitution does however err on limiting impedances to popular democracy, especially post-Civil War