I think he called you both untrustworthy and illiterate. Clearly, both of those flaws are evidence of your lack of personal responsibility. At least he had juuuuuuust enough energy to chastise you, with some idea that you’d read it.
(By the way, remember when conservatives talked about “personal responsibility?” The term seems to have vanished in the era of Trumpism. I hadn’t really noticed that before.)
How about reading the thread? As already discussed there is Supreme Court case on point that states cannot, in the guise of ballot access regulations, impose stricter qualifications for federal office than what is specified int eh constitution. Though that case dealt with qualifications for congressional office there is nothing in the court’s ruling that would make it not apply to the presidency.
The Constitution does not impose qualifications like “must get 1000 signatures” or “must fill out an application form and pay a fee”, yet those requirements are ubiquitous. Why would submitting tax returns, which anyone can do (unlike a religious test), and which isn’t discriminatory against anyone, be different?
I’m not saying that I know that the tax requirements are Constitutional – maybe they aren’t. But I don’t think this has been shown.
I’m pretty confident I did not call him either of those.
In US Term Limits v Thornton the court specifically rejected the argument that changes to ballot access of the sort at issue was a permissible power of the state to regulate “times, places, and manner” of elections.
That was an actual restriction, that made some people ineligible for the ballot. The proposal in question doesn’t restrict anyone, since anyone can turn in their tax returns.
Just read the case. Really. You’re grasping at straws here.
The court categorically shot down the idea that the states or congress can change the qualifications for federal office with anything short of a constitutional amendment. The court rejected the idea that substantive ballot access restrictions are permissible to exclude certain categories of candidates.
Requirements for petitions, filing deadlines, etc., are for the betterment of the election system itself. The election runs more smoothly if there aren’t a thousand frivolous candidates and there’s a central authority that knows what names to put on the ballot. Even then, states occasionally get slapped down for having requirements that are too onerous.
Requiring disclosure of a tax return in exchange for ballot access offers no comparable benefit. Nothing about Donald Trump’s tax return had any bearing on the administration and tabulation of the election in 2016. The benefit, if there is any, is in the quality of the candidate. The goal is to have a president who has disclosed his tax returns rather than one who has not.
This isn’t a “ballot access restriction”. It doesn’t exclude anyone.
IANAL, of course. So we’ll see what the court says. But this seems quite different to me.
So did you ever read Thornton? Inquiring minds want to know.
Fighting ignorance is taking longer than I thought.
And for the record Thornton was decided by what is generally referred to by the liberal wing of the court. So this means you are hoping the conservative majority with Thomas, Alito and the rest carry the day now?
Okay, I’ll just take your word for it and ignore my own thoughts, since your certainty is obviously so incredibly mighty and powerful that it has penetrated my thick, inferior attempt at rationality. Kudos to you for being so brilliant and superior!
They’ve already done it. I had a friend living in Cleveland in 2000. The Republican government moved bunches of ballot boxes from black neighborhoods to rural areas where they weren’t needed. The result was that blacks were waiting up to 4 hours to vote and many gave up.
As mentioned above, you don’t actually vote for president; only a slate of electors. There is nothing to stop a state legislature from appointing the electors and skipping the election.
That said, I really dislike this move. We should be trying to enhance democracy, not try to prevent voting like one part wants.
They’re not trying to take Trump off the ballot, they’re trying to make him release his tax returns.
There are rural areas in Cleveland? I know Detroit is going to pasture, hadn’t heard of it happening in Cleveland.
Anyone can swear an affirmation about their beliefs in God too, right?
To argue this isn’t a ballot access restriction is ludicrous. There is no meaningful difference between what is being proposed about tax returns and simply leaving off the other party from the ballot all together.
We could easily every state with single party control of the legislature having only one party to vote for in any statewide election. Would that be ballot access, or declaring a particular party like anyone could do?
I don’t think this can be forced without violating the 1st Amendment.
Somewhere between “anyone and everyone who wants to gets on the ballot” and “one party access” are things like “collect X number of sigs, fill out an application form, pay a fee, etc.” which are ubiquitous and obviously allowed. I think “tax returns too!” is much closer to those allowed requirements than anything tyrannical or oppressive that actually would stop any serious candidate or harm public access. But we’ll see in the courts, I presume.
Why just the president? Whatever analysis used for that position can be used for any statewide offices such as senator or governor. Who wants those out of state big money people controlling our capitol?
Except that the proposed laws are being examined for the precise purpose of keeping the current President off of the ballot.
I admit, you might be using the term “serious candidate” in the weasel-wordy sort of way that means “candidate who isn’t a clown” (which Trump clearly is) as opposed to “candidate who has a chance of winning” (which Trump unfortunately does have).
The “precise purpose” is to force Trump (and future candidates) to release their returns, not to keep anyone off the ballot.