If a majority of the electoral college was to vote for Arnold Schwarzenegger and the joint session of Congress was to declare that he was the winner, would he be president despite his oblivious ineligibility? Is there anyone or any institution that has the power to prevent his assumption of the presidency? Would anyone have standing to challenge this in the courts? Would a court even hear the case or would it be dismissed as a political question?
Given that the Constitutional requires that the President be a “natural born” ctizen and Schwarzenneger is not, he could not be legally elected President if he got all the votes in the world.
And since it’s a Constitutional issue, any citizen of the U.S. could bring suit to have the results overturned.
Right, this could not happen. We are a Constitutional Republic and the U.S. Constitution itself overrides any and all people or bodies. No non-natural born citizens can become POTUS without a Constitutional amendment and those are very hard to pass and not worth the effort on this issue.
The person with the second-most electoral votes would have standing.
And while the SCOTUS says that it will not hear political questions, it has held that election questions are not necessarily political. see Bush v. Gore.
For the issue of Schwarzenegger being elected I agree it is not worth the effort. But in general it would be worth the effort. We are a country built on immigrants, it has always seemed asinine to me that we deny immigrants the chance to run for our highest office. There are many great men from American history who were ineligible to our highest office despite spending many, many decades (in Arnold’s case, the bulk of his life) in our country. Now, many of the ones I’m thinking of probably were not politically that interested (like Einstein) but, still.
Well the SCOTUS itself decides what is poltical and not. And it has reversed itself on decisions this is why we don’t need an admentent for child labor. Because the SCOTUS decided it could hear cases on that.
Whether or not it’s right for immigrants to be eligable for President isn’t a legal question, it’s a question for discussion.
I hear this a lot on radio as to McCain being born in the Canal Zone which was then part of the US. Does the term natural born mean born physically in the USA or would it apply to a child physically born in France but to one or two Americans? Would a child born in France to a naturalized mother and naturalized father of the United States be a “natural born” citizen?
He would be a citizen and I would suspect if that ever became the case the SCOTUS would take the position that in that case if the Amercian people voted for such a case that’s good enough for them.
As for the OP: Standing would certainly be with the person who tallied the second largest number of votes. And it wouldn’t be a “political question” such that the Supreme Court would stay out of it, because that doctrine is used by the Court to avoid fights between the Executive and Legislative branches, not every dispute with political overtones.
Of course, like most such questions, the concept is a bit ridiculous. If someone like Arnold were to run for office, it would be because the Constitution had already been amended to allow it. If not, the campaign would die for the fact that everyone would know that the Constitution would prevent his taking office.
What does it mean for SCOTUS to say “we will not hear political questions?” What are some “political questions” that might plausibly have gone to SCOTUS but that SCOTUS will not hear?
I think saying only the person with the second number of votes has standing is ludicrous. In the real world, there would be an injunction filed for and awarded preventing Arnold’s name from being printed on any ballot in the first place. We wouldn’t hold the election first and then fight his election, he’d be knocked off the ballot well beforehand.
Whats odd, over in the other thread we get dudes claiming that there’d nbe no suit or that the suit be thrown out as it’s political. Admittedly McCain has a decent case for being “Natural born”. But it’s not a slam dunk, and if McCains case would never be brought, why is everyone so sure Arnies case would be?
That’s not necessarily clear. Many courts would defer the issue, prefering to see what happens afterward, especially since there is not specific federal agency tasked with establishing what appears on any state’s ballots.
Remeber, it’s not the candidate who is appearing on the November ballot, it’s the slate of pledged electors. It would, I think, be difficult to establish that a slate of electors, otherwise meeting all the rules for appearing on the ballot, should be prevented from appearing on the ballot solely because they pledge to vote for a candidate who is ineligible under the Constitution of the United States.
Now, individual states might have statutes that cover this situation, saying something along the lines that the slate must be pledged to a candidate eligible under the Constitution, but I tend to doubt it, and, frankly, there would be some potential free speech issues implicated if they did.
Powell v. McCormick (1969) - Whether a congressional proceeding is adequate to impeach a member of congress. The court held that all it was qualified to decide was whether the member met the constitutional requirements for membership.
Nixon v. US (1993) (not to be confused with US v. Nixon (1974)) - Whether an impeachment proceeding of a federal judge was legitimate. The court held that congress has the sole power to try such proceedings, and any involvement by the judicial branch would be dabbling in politics.
I disagree. Assuming an independent candidacy, here in Ohio I think the Ohio secretary of state would have the authority to refuse to accept the nominating petition based on them being fraudulent, and if the petitions were accepted, then any elector in the state would have an action against the SOS for quo warrento.
As I read the Ohio statutes, the relevant ones would be:
and
The fraud being the candidate is ineligible for the office, so his candidacy is a fraud.
Fraud requires a material misrepresentation of fact. What material misrepresentation of fact would you propose exists in such a petition?
The answer, of course, comes by looking at the petition. Assuming that the person has no possible legitimate claim to being “natural born,” then the misrepresentation would be apparent on the face of it. If the person has a colorable claim, then it would be up to the Secretary of State to decide if she was going to reject the petition and force the prospective candidate to go to the courts to force acceptance and placement on the ballot.
Interestingly, it isn’t clear that a candidate to be President, nominated by one of the main parties, is required to file anything other than a consent to be first named choice of elector candidates. Hmmmm.
Madeleine Albright was in the same boat as Arnie back when she was the flavor of the day. She was born in Prague a Czech national. Being fourth in line to the presidency, there was some concern about her ineligibility to be president in the event of some catastrophic occurrence wiping out everyone ahead of her. There was also talk of her running for president if only that constitutional impediment could be changed.
Myself, I’m against changing it and will always vote against doing so. Yes, I’m fully aware we’re a nation of immigrants blah blah blah, but I feel it is only good policy to allow born Americans to be president.
As I mentioned in the other thread, although the Canal Zone was under US jurisdiction, it was not a part of the US but officially part of Panama. Being born in the Canal Zone did not in and of itself confer US citizenship, any more than being born in Costa Rica would. McCain’s claim to natural-born citizenship rests on the fact that his parents were citizens; the detail that he was born in the Canal Zone is essentially a red herring.
Exactly. If the fact that a region is under American jurisdiction was enough to confer citizenship, then everyone born in Japan between 1945 and 1952 would be an American citizen.