What you're not hearing about using the Constitution to fix the debt ceiling crisis.

There is a serious chance that Biden will invoke Section 4 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution to prevent a Treasury default if the debt ceiling is not raised or suspended. This idea has been floated before, but it is more likely than ever in today's toxic political environment, and in the pandemic era in which the public has been acclimated to extensive exercise of executive power in the name of emergency. Section 4 says "The validity of the public debt of the United States... shall not be questioned." It was upheld in a single Supreme Court case in 1935. On the face of it, the entire debt ceiling process is unconstitutional. Clinton urged Obama to invoke Section 4 in 2011; Obama did not, and a downgrade resulted. It's not clear that anyone has standing to sue Biden if he invokes it, because no one is harmed by preventing a default. Biden's power to invoke is a safety valve, but one that might move the GOP to greater brinksmanship.