From the Wikipedia entry on “President-elect of the United States.”
“Two congressional reports found that the President-elect is the eventual winner of the majority of electoral ballots cast in December. The Congressional Research Service (CRS) of the Library of Congress, in its 2004 report “Presidential and Vice Presidential Succession: Overview and Current Legislation,” discussed the question of when candidates who have received a majority of electoral votes become President-elect. The report notes that the constitutional status of the President-elect is disputed:
Some commentators doubt whether an official President- and Vice President-elect exist prior to the electoral votes being counted and announced by Congress on January 6, maintaining that this is a problematic contingency lacking clear constitutional or statutory direction. Others assert that once a majority of electoral votes has been cast for one ticket, then the recipients of these votes become the President- and Vice President-elect, notwithstanding the fact that the electoral votes are not counted and certified until the following January 6.
The CRS report quotes the 1933 U.S. House committee report accompanying the Twentieth Amendment as endorsing the latter view:
It will be noted that the committee uses the term “President elect” in its generally accepted sense, as meaning the person who has received the majority of electoral votes, or the person who has been chosen by the House of Representatives in the event that the election is thrown into the House. It is immaterial whether or not the votes have been counted, for the person becomes the President elect as soon as the votes are cast.”
So, it is possible that the conferring of the President-elect title precedes the Joint Session of Congress and written objections raised there as to whether the President-elect has qualified could be the way to address those objections.
So, let’s say, just for discussion sake, that the eligibility challenges to Obama in California (Grinolds v California Electors) and in Ohio (Daniels v Husted) were still in process on January 4, 2013. Congresswoman Marcia Blackburn and Senator Rand Paul submit written objections to the certification of Obama’s electoral votes to the President of the Senate, Joe Biden. The objections state that California’s and Ohio’s electoral votes should not be certified until those legal challenges are resolved. Both Houses adjourn from the Joint Session and both Houses vote to uphold the objections to the certification of California’s 55 Electoral votes and Ohio’s 18 Electoral votes until the legal challenges are resolved. Obama then goes from 332 Electoral votes to 259 electoral votes, not enough to be president ( he needed 270). Joe Biden also doesn’t have 270, he can’t be Acting President unless the House of Representatives appoints him as such.
Most likely, John Boehner becomes Acting President until the California and Ohio lawsuits into whether Obama has qualified are resolved.
I’ll have to think about this.
One problem with your scenario: According to the theory that Presidential qualifications can only be examined by Congress, there would never be a state challenge to Obama’s eligibility that would be justiciable, even if there was a person with standing (such as McCain, Palin, Romney, or Ryan). So there would be no basis for Congress members challenging electoral votes that could be based on a challenge in the courts.
And actually, the statute that codifies the procedures for certifying the electoral vote doesn’t make provision for challenges based on eligibility. The issues that are supposed to qualify electoral votes for a challenge are the integrity of the seal, the certification of the copies, and the state’s certification of the general election vote. Stuff like that.
These things are probably why the Congressional Research Service says that the Constitution MIGHT allow Congress to challenge eligibility.
But what was used by the WA judge and WA Supreme Court was the claim that STATES CAN’T deal with Presidential eligibility because ONLY CONGRESS can. And that is baloney, according to the CRS attorney. If this excuse hadn’t been used at the state level, we wouldn’t have to worry about what the Congress-critter politicians were willing or unwilling to do. It would have been handled at a more local level, where perhaps Obama would have been denied placement on a ballot and the stage would have been set for a judicial challenge by OBAMA, where standing was guaranteed and discovery mandated. That’s what we need. That’s what Obama refused to allow to happen. And that’s what folks like you are siding with the usurper on - and AGAINST what the CRS has been telling the Congress-critters this whole time.
IOW, the Congress-critters weren’t going to challenge Obama’s eligibility even if they wanted to, because the CRS had told them it was Constitutionally questionable whether they even COULD - because the states are supposed to govern their own elections. So folks like the CRS are saying, “Congress might not be able to do it. The states are the ones who are supposed to do it.” And folks like YOU TROLLS are saying, “States can’t do it; only Congress can.”
Classic talking out of both sides of the mouth so that both Congress and the states claim it’s somebody else’s job.
And the same thing happens with the judicial v legislative argument. We’ve all been taught in 7th-grade civics class that the judiciary is responsible for interpreting the Constitution. But now folks are saying Congress is supposed to do it. So we’ve got Congress saying (on the basis of the CRS memo) “We can’t do it; the courts have to interpret the Constitution.” And we’ve got folks like YOU TROLLS saying, “The courts can’t interpret the Constitution. The Constitution specifically gives that job to the political system - and specifically Congress.”
The people who are playing both ends against the middle IN BOTH ISSUES are YOU TROLLS. Your arguments don’t make sense, and they are contradicted by both the Constitution, the laws, and the CRS.