The granting of a Writ of Quo Warranto by the US District Court for the District of Columbia requires a federal elected official to present evidence that they meet the legal requirements for the post they hold. It does not remove a person from that position. So Judge Carter was correct. He was addressing the process of removing a president from office.
Back in 2010, if John McCain or Sarah Palin had been granted standing to file Quo Warranto and the Writ was granted, the US Solicitor General, Elena Kagan, would have shown a copy of Obama’s short form COLB to Chief US District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth and that would have been that.
“Quo Warranto — (Latin for “by what authority”) is ‘an ancient writ used by the King of England to determine if an individual’s claim to an office or franchise is well-founded.’ Theoretically, federal courts can issue writs of quo warranto against corporate officers, but a court must have subject matter jurisdiction to do so. A more likely use of this writ is to challenge the authority of federal public officials to hold office.
‘Quo warranto actions in federal courts are governed by the provisions of [the D.C. Code].’ Additionally, the writ may only be sought by the ‘Attorney General of the United States or the United States attorney’ or, ‘by leave of the court,’ an ‘interested person’ acting as a relator on behalf of the United States. Despite the D.C. Code’s relator provision, the D.C. Circuit has held that ‘actions against public officials . . . can only be instituted by the Attorney General.’ Nonetheless, a person having a claim to an office may be able to institute quo warranto proceedings if the Attorney General or U.S. attorney refuses to act. {Only McCain and Palin received electoral votes and had a legitimate claim to the office that Obama was occupying}.
Federal quo warranto has gained attention as a result of the ‘birther’ movement. In Taitz v. Obama, 707 F. Supp. 2d 1 (D.D.C. 2010), the court was confronted with a quo warranto petition challenging President Obama’s right to hold office. The court dismissed the claim: ‘Because Ms. Taitz is neither the Attorney General of the United States nor the United States attorney for the District of Columbia, she does not have standing to bring a quo warranto action challenging a public official’s right to hold office.’ As a practical matter, federal quo warranto is probably best viewed as a theoretical matter only — based on a search for ‘quo warranto’ in Westlaw’s CTA11 database, only two cases discuss the writ in passing.”
Yep. That’s all correct. My point was that Judge Carter erred in saying essentially that the courts play no role in removing a usurper. Congress transferred the power to challenge an ineligible executive’s right to hold his office to the D.C. District Court via a writ of quo warranto. With a successful quo warranto, an act of Congress would not be required to remove the ineligible executive.