This might be more of a Factual Question, but I doubt it has an unambiguous answer.
Imagine that the Mamdami-AOC ticket wins the 2028 Presidential election. AOC effectively would become President, as Mamdami is Constitutionally ineligible for the office. But then in 2030, the Constitution is amended to remove the requirement for birthright citizenship. Does Mamdami then automatically become President, or does it not matter because the requirement was still in effect when he was elected?
(IOW, does AOC just become President on Inauguration Day, or does she become Acting President, with Mamdami as President-Elect, with the capacity to become President if he becomes eligible at any time during the term he was elected to?)
(The same question could arise if, say, a 33 year old was elected President)
WAG: Every state’s Secretary of State (or whoever is in charge of the pixels on the screen the compromise their ballots) would nullify the Mamdami-AOC ticket pro forma because he’s ineligible.
President Mandami would take office because the country decided to ignore that part of the constitution. But if I am wrong, SCOTUS would have to come up with something.
Surely the amendment text would address this. If not – constitutional crisis.
I’ve wondered about this because of having read that, in the eighteen century, people often did not quite know when they had been born.
You could say that the framers of the constitution just assumed that the president would come from the upper classes, where almost everyone did know when they were born. But it also could be that they figured the constitution was guidance to be interpreted in a sensible way when it could not quite apply. Without a transcript of the Philadelphia constitutional convention discussions, it is impossible to know.
That was actually the thought process that first sparked the idea for the thread, but I decided to reframe it in a way that wouldn’t make people want to throw up in their mouths. (well, at least not the wrong people)
No, it wouldn’t get that far. He could not be elected, as it’s in direct violation of the constitution. How that would be put into effect is open to interpretation, but he would be successfully challenged off the ballots and/or no votes cast for him would be valid, and/or not electoral votes for him would be certified. It may end up in the SCOTUS, but it would be effectively challenged long before election day.
Assuming somehow the courts and states allowed AOC to win the election based on some magic handwaving, she would become president once the election is certified by Congress. There’s no second bite at the apple, no amendment is going to change that. Elections have winners, and once they are declared we have no way to nullify them.
If you transpose this to a situation where SCOTUS, Congress, and enough states are willing to completely disregard the Constitution in support of Trump then anything can happen. You’ve effectively removed the rule of law.
This situation is a constitutional crisis, defined as a situation where a decision is needed regarding a crucial question but the country’s constitution does not really address it.
If everything was done on the up and up except that the legitimately chosen electors want President Mandami, you have a constitutional crisis.
As to the rule of law, in this one instance, it was not followed.
At the certification level there isn’t a Mamdani-AOC ballot - there is a ballot for President and there is a ballot for Vice President. The SoS (or state legislature) would nullify Mamdani, or the US Senate would. Then VP-elect would elevate to President-elect.
It wouldn’t even get that far. if nothing else the whole idea would be squashed at the Dem National Convention. Mamdani could continue to try and run if he he wanted to, but it wouldn’t be on the Democratic ticket. And an independent is not going to win the election.
Oh for sure. I was just speaking to the hypothetical - it’s sadly not too hard to conceive of an entire political movement who would convince themselves that a move like this would work.
Obviously the Democrats won’t actually do this, so don’t fight the hypothetical.
ITSM that it would arguably be excessive for courts or State officials to prevent the ticket from being listed on the ballot, since it includes one eligible person. The practical effect of the ticket winning is that AOC would become President. If voters want to elect AOC, they should be able to do so, even if they insist on doing so in a weirdly roundabout way.
I suppose you could argue that Electoral votes for Mamdani wouldn’t be counted, so there would be no majority in the EC and the election would be decided in the House But AOC’s votes should count, so she is VP even if a Republican becomes President.
I could honestly see a situation where Donald Trump wins 270 electoral votes in 2028. Once he decides to run, no law can stop him from trying to convince people to vote for him: it’s his 1st Amendment right to do so. So even if every SCOTUS justice called him personally to tell him that he can’t win a third term, if he has decided to run he’s not going to be talked out of it. The Republicans will either get behind him anyway, or put up their own candidate. And if his name is on the ballot in every precinct in every state, well … stranger things, and all that.
So if he wins the EC, and Vance certifies him because fuck the 22nd Amendment, then we have until January 20 for the SCOTUS to put a stop to this michegas.
Here’s an interesting article from the Cato Institute, so take it with a grain of salt. But the general concensus is the Congress would not accept the candidate and the elected VP would become president. After that, the only way for someone else to become president is outlined in the 25th amendment.
The ruling in Trump v. Anderson was that only Congress has the power to enforce the eligibility provisions on Presidents. Courts and states cannot disqualify anyone for any reason.
As a practical matter, under the current legal regime, it is extremely unlikely that anyone would be disqualified from the ballot. Many of the same conservative justices who issued the pro-Trump rulings in the above case also were extremely hostile to the Obama birther lawsuits. The attitude seems to be “if you think he’s ineligible, don’t vote for him” with an almost limitless skepticism towards non-democratic “disqualification” of anyone, even in cases where the Constitution is very clear as to who “should” be disqualified (but, fatally, is silent on who has the authority to actually disqualify them and how).
Interesting fact; the Constitution requires Senators to be at least thirty years old when they take office (Article I, Section 3, Clause 3). But the law wasn’t enforced in the early decades of the country and at least four men, between 1806 and 1818, were sworn in as Senators before they were thirty.
Enforcement eventually tightened up and when Rush Holt was elected in 1934 at the age of twenty-nine, he had to wait until six months into what was supposed to be his term before he reached his thirtieth birthday and was sworn in.
Not sure how these precedents would apply to the situation discussed in the OP but I’m sure they would be mentioned. Some would point out that Constitutional requirements have been ignored in the past. Others would point out that Holt’s assumption to office was delayed but his election was not invalidated.
From what I understand, Trump v. Anderson addressed only the eligibility provision of the section 3 of the 14th Amendment, not the other constitutional requirements to be eligible for president.
The questions of whether someone is of the right age, or a natural-born citizen, can be resolved more easily than the question of whether someone has engaged in an insurrection. Could you explain where in the majority opinion the non-insurrection requirements are discussed and essentially overruled?
As a matter of fact, the electors would vote however they pleased, presumably that person would be AOC. When congress came to count the EV any vote for an ineligible person would be ignored.