[NJJ]

Should the Republicans be fortunate enough to win both houses this November, I have a suggestion that they write a bill that would resolve whether a candidate is qualified for political offices. If they can get it passed, Obama would be hard pressed not to sign it, and/or there could be later consequences. The proposed law would be:

1) Whatever candidate that runs for office, with special qualifications required, would have to have HIS/Her Party CERTIFY that the candidate meets ALL requirements for qualification. A candidate so CERTIFIED CAN NOT be challenged.

2) Should evidence appear that the candidate IS NOT QUALIFIED, The candidate/office holder would be removed from office and his Party penalized (such as with loss of donor tax deduct ability) for a TBD period of time. The penalty would be applied at time of discovery and verification, regardless of when it occurs (including after the term is served) The certifying Party would be penalized and in case of the president, that presidency annulled.

Such a law would not be targeting anyone and it would become effective for the 2012 election.

[fightinJAG]

We definitely need a law to avoid these controversies in the future. Nothing to do with Obambi'a present term. If he can't meet the law in 2012, that's his problem, or he can challenge the law in court and that also would be helpful.

I think the parties do presently "certify" a candidate. It's just that there is not, so far as I can tell, truly an established procedure, with a reviewable standard, and an established appeal process and remedy applied. IOW, it seems to be one of those yadda-yadda-yadda things, where some party hack who has no clue what he's supposed to be evaluating just says "if someone says they're a citizen and show some kind of paperwork, that's good enough for government party hack work."

This MUST be cleared up for the future. Why did the McCain Birthers hold congressional hearings on whether McCain was eligible? One, because of politics. Which is okay. But two, and this is the important one, because they know that a political party's certification of a candidate, or a political party's act in simply holding someone out as a candidate or nominee, is meaningless in terms of actually evaluating the candidate's qualification.

The McCain Birthers demonstrated quite clearly that politicians know that the current vetting for presidential candidates is nothing but party-hack-rubberstamping that is clueless about the legal and constitutional issues in presidential eligibility. But, of course, just because politicians know there is a problem, or a lack of adequate safeguards in a process, doesn't mean they will address that appropriately.

So should this matter be left up to the political whims of the opposing party or opposing candidates? That would be pretty stupid. Let's take it out of the realm of the purely political by establishing a standard and procedure that applies to ALL candidates in the future.

If someone wants to challenge the standard or the procedure, then go ahead. That would be fantastic. But right now there is nothing even to challenge in court, apparently. An issue of this potential magnitude is, incredibly, presently dependent solely upon whether politicians do or do not want to get involved in it. That's no way to protect and uphold the Constitution.