IMO, the issue is not ripe until AFTER the Electoral College votes on Dec 15. I get that from the specific wording in the 20th Amendment, “if the President elect shall have failed to qualify”. The ‘winner’ isn’t President elect until the EC votes.
If that’s true, then maybe Scalia was the No vote. IMO, he’s the the top Constitutional scholar on the Court. If the USSC were to rule before that, THEN we’d have a real Constitutional crisis, because we’d have no President after 1/19/09, and no proscribed way to get one. Too many electors are bound by State law to vote for Obama, who would be ineligible.
IMO. Add $4.75 to that, and you might get a Cappuccino at Starbucks or some such place. ;-)
I might not be following you. My take is that: If the electors vote as instructed by the voters for Obama-Biden, and then Obama is disqualified, we get President Biden. But if this were to go down before Dec. 15, the electors would still be who they are and would get to vote for anyone, which would send the whole mess to the House and Senate for lack of a majority unless someone got to 270.
I might be over-analyzing. I think more than 270 Obama electors are required by State law in each State to vote for Obama. IOW, they have to vote for him even though he would be ineligible. A conundrum.
On 3rd thought, in that case, we’d probably have Acting President Biden.