I sometimes think that Democrats do not realize what they’re toying with. At Outside the Beltway James Joyner takes note of a move to block ballot access to any candidate who has not released five years worth of tax returns:
A growing number of blue states are trying to force Donald Trump to release his tax returns as a condition of appearing on the 2020 presidential ballot.
The problem with this, of course, is that there have been Supreme Court decisions finding that state and local governments are not empowered to impose their own requirements or restrictions on offices whose qualifications are defined in the U. S. Constitution and the office of president is one of those. From Article Two:
No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident …
That’s it. No other qualifications may be piled on top of that. Imposing additional requirements for electors to the Electoral College should be seen in the same light—an attempt to do an end run around the Constitution. They can’t impose their own qualifications for president, senator, or representative and they can’t impose their own qualificiations for voting for federal offices.
Consider this scenario. One of the states decides to abolish its present government in favor of a monarchy. That would be an express violation of Article Four of the Constitution:
The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government…
Citizens of the state who prefer a republican form of government would be completely legitimate in overthrowing the state’s monarchy by force.
I can think of little more likely to foment a civil war in the United States than such pseudo-legal politically-motivated gambits.
“I can think of little more likely to foment a civil war in the United States than such pseudo-legal politically-motivated gambits.”
Then you have the widespread effort by the GOP to keep Democrats from voting. In some cases you have GOP legislators on record saying that the purpose of their actions (voter ID, gerrymandering, etc.) is to either keep Democrats form voting or having their votes not count. Look at what they are doing in Florida where 64% of the people voted to restore the vote to felons who have served their time.
Then you have our national election for POTUS. The moat votes doesn’t win the election anymore, and it only goes in one direction. All of this is not to say that the Democrats are not without fault, but when it comes to engaging in “pseudo-legal politically-motivated gambits.” this is just the latest action and it looks like a catch up attempt.
Steve
That is a canard, steve. The rules didn’t change in 2016. What changed was that the Democratic candidate didn’t win so they complained about the rules.
More people voted against Bill Clinton than voted for him but I don’t recall the hue and cry about the undemocraticness of it all then. He won fair and square, playing by the rules. So did Trump.
I don’t have a dog in the felons-voting hunt. You clearly think that Republicans have a monopoly on undemocratic practices. May I invite you to Illinois?
In all likelihood Kennedy did not actually win a majority of the popular vote in 1960, Bill Clinton did not win a majority of the popular vote in either 1992 or 1996, George W. Bush did not win a majority of the popular vote in 2000, and Trump did not win a majority of the popular vote in 2016. Since 1960 there have been 15 presidential elections and in a third of them the winner of the election did not secure a majority of the popular vote. Complain about all of those elections; complain about none of those election; or just admit you’re playing Calvinball.
Uh, er, steve…………you would be speaking of the Florida with Broward and Dade counties, where the results seem to take forever (or alternatively, how many do you need?) and the elections comm hit the road after, well, inquiries were made about process.
Are you blind? Where do you get your info?
“That is a canard, steve. ”
No, it is a fact, but let’s make it easy for you to refute. Name the POTUS elections where the Republican candidate had the most votes but lost. Go ahead, it will be a short list. (I very carefully and specifically said MOAT votes, which with my bad typing skills I still hope was clear that it meant MOST. Your use of MAJORITIES after my specifying MOST is a canard. Or maybe a parakeet.)
“I don’t have a dog in the felons-voting hunt. You clearly think that Republicans have a monopoly on undemocratic practices. May I invite you to Illinois?”
I dont recall you ever documenting the efforts of Democrats in Illinois to keep Republicans from voting or the extreme kind of gerrymandering like we have seen here in PA. Note that I am not claiming that Republicans are more corrupt that Democrats. There is more than enough corruption to go around. So go ahead, maybe I missed out, and tell us sometime about the kind of systematic “pseudo-legal politically-motivated gambits” going on in Illinois. (Note the metric here. I am sure there is outright corruption. We have that in Philly and in local politics here too.)
https://www.wired.com/story/pennsylvania-partisan-gerrymandering-experts/
Steve
So, it’s to be Calvinball.
The law is a majority of the votes in the Electoral College not a plurality of the popular vote. That’s been true since 1789. The criterion you’re citing is irrelevant and has has been for 230 years. There is no need to refute an irrelevancy.
I have posted any number of times on gerrymandering by the Democrats who control the legislature. The gerrymandering serves to concentrate Republican votes in a few districts and dilute them in others to ensure that incumbent Democrats are re-elected.
As to extreme have you ever seen the Illinois 4th District? It’s frequently cited as one of the most drastically gerrymandered districts in the country.
Poor, steve. And it’s only going to get worse.
“The criterion you’re citing is irrelevant and has has been for 230 years.”
Nope. I understand the electoral college. I am saying that if you continue to have elections where the winning candidate receives less votes (I am not talking about a majority) than the loser then you have a problem. It is playing with fire. Couple that with what McConell did by blocking Garland and outright refusing to consider so many nominations during last 2 years and you have a GOP that is ruling the country through ““pseudo-legal politically-motivated gambits†or flaws in our system.
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2018/06/04/senate-obstructionism-handed-judicial-vacancies-to-trump/
Yes, I have seen the 4th. It is almost as bad as the old PA 7th. Still, the Democrats in PA just aren’t as good at it as the GOP in PA. In Illinois the large majority of people vote for Dems. You kind of expect them to have the most congressmen, and they just add a bit to it. (I think that if you run models there is probably a point in the high 60%-70% where you have a sufficient majority you to take almost all of the seats anyway.) It is in states like PA where the votes are fairly close to 50-50 where you se the GOP walking away with an outsize proportion of wins. If and when the GOP have someone run a model with a trillion other options in a Dem gerrymandered state and have all of those others be more fair, like we saw in PA, then I will have to concede there is equality in gerrymandering.
Steve
The release-the-tax-returns-or-you’re-not-on-the-ballot legislation is all virtue signalling. The states likely to enact it are extremely unlikely to go for Trump anyway. The same states are pushing for making the electoral votes of their states go for the winner of the popular vote, for the same reason.
Steve: It ain’t a republic, much less any flavor of democracy, when one side only accepts election results if they win, and if they don’t demand to change the rules so that they always win.
It is amusing that Democrats are in a tizzy over the Electoral College overriding the popular vote. The Super Delegates were put in place to override the popular vote in the primaries.
Once the EC is eliminated, all non-voters become important, and once the Democrats lose with their non-EC elections, they will bitch about something else.
TB- It aint much of a republic, much less blah, blah, blah if only one side keeps winning while they keep getting fewer votes. So lets have a couple of elections where Democrats have fewer votes but still win. Lets have Republicans win a POTUS election then have a Democratic Senate refuse to confirm that presidents nominees to federal courts.
Steve
“I am saying that if you continue to have elections where the winning candidate receives less votes (I am not talking about a majority) than the loser then you have a problem. It is playing with fire.”
That is a systemic issue, not one created by the GOP – and it’s not like Democrats are powerless against it. As Dave noted, Regardless, I don’t see what that has to do with the legislation trying to force out Trump’s tax returns. Such legislation seems clearly unconstitutional and also very dumb since two can play that game.