Those words utterly falsify the argument made in the linked article. SCOTUS is granted the authority to decide any issue whatesover that is a case in law or equity (check) and which arises under the Constitution (also check.) Yes, Congress is granted sole authority to judge whether or not its members satisfy any membership or elligibility requirements, but the Constitution makes no such special grant of authority to anyone at all with respect to Presidential eligibility--which is why the words of Article III utterly and beyond any possibility of rational or legal counter-argument refutes the author. SCOTUS is granted to authority to decide whether someone is or is not Constitutionally President. Period. Full stop. End of discussion.
>SCOTUS is granted to authority to decide whether someone is or is not Constitutionally President. Period. Full stop. End of discussion.
Not quite (end of discussion); the Supreme court has no authority to alter or amend the Constitution. So if, for example, Obama were really 16 years old NOTHING they said would change the fact to make Obama qualify for President because they cannot change the requirement for age. Likewise, if Obama were not a Citizen, then nothing they could do could make him a Natural Born Citizen because “natural born citizen” is a subset of “citizen.”
Correct me if I’m wrong but does each state have the responsibility to verify that an individual is qualified to be President? From my understanding, only one state signed the document, claiming that Obama was qualified and that was Hawaii.
The Twentieth Amendment provides as follows:
If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified; and the Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a President elect nor a Vice President elect shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice President shall have qualified.
What does it mean that a "President-elect" shall have "failed to qualify"? To become a President-elect, a candidate must have received the votes of the electors.
Therefore this "qualification" process is something that happens after the electors' votes are counted and before the President-elect formally takes office as President.
What is required under the Constitution for a President to qualify? Only two things: (1) the person must be eligible to be President and (2) must take the oath of office.
The logical conclusion is that because the process of counting the votes of electors is committed to Congress in the form of the president of the Senate presiding over a joint session of both Houses, that that is the time and venue when an objection to qualifying a President-elect is to be made on the basis of not being eligible.
If an objection is made to the president-elect's ability to qualify and it is sustained in that venue, then the procedures of the Twentieth Amendment are followed for determining who is to be the President.
If an objection is failed to be made, and an ineligible President-elect is nevertheless qualified as President, then the only recourse at that point is for the House to impeach him for this defect and the Senate to remove him, under their constitutional powers.
SCOTUS absolutely has the power granted to it by the Constitution to rule upon the eligibility of the President. Thoug they have little power to enforce such a ruling.
Yet there also is no magic wand that makes the Court correct in how they rule and that being so, the other two branches could in theory defy and challenge such a ruling. Thus a Constitutional crisis.
Congress could seek to impeach Justices, hold their own hearings, create law that flys in the face of judicial rulings, defund, etc....
The Executive could also simply use the power of the Presidency to bully the Court (or the Congress) through Executive orders, declare the Court to be in rebellion of the Constitution and issue orders of arrest, etc...
The really sad part in regards to the issue of Presidential eligibility is that ‘We the People’ have very little power once all three branches coose to ignore the issue.
Precedent is now being set and the ‘eligibility clause’ of the Constitution and the meaning of ‘natural born’ citizen is being made meaningless.
ABSITIVELY !!! If someone brought a quo warranto action against a President-Elect in the District of Columbia [and SCOTUS accepted it], there is NOTHING to stop them from doing so. That is, unless you want to undo 208 years of Supreme Court jurisprudence - as specified in Marbury v. Madison, where the Court asserted the right of judicial review.
From Marbury v. Madison:
"The Constitution vests the whole judicial power of the United States in one Supreme Court, and such inferior courts as Congress shall, from time to time, ordain and establish. This power is expressly extended to all cases arising under the laws of the United States; and consequently, in some form, may be exercised over the present case, because the right claimed is given by a law of the United States ..."
It cannot be presumed that any clause in the Constitution is intended to be without effect, and therefore such construction is inadmissible unless the words require it ..."
"It is emphatically the province and duty of the Judicial Department to say what the law is ..."
"This is of the very essence of judicial duty ..."
"The judicial power of the United States is extended to all cases arising under the Constitution."
"Could it be the intention of those who gave this power to say that, in using it, the Constitution should not be looked into? That a case arising under the Constitution should be decided without examining the instrument under which it arises?"
"This is too extravagant to be maintained."
"In some cases then, the Constitution must be looked into by the judges ..."
I enjoy and am inspired by his speeches and I am grateful he's in the Senate. Way to go Florida!!!
But, he isn't eligible to be President, since he isn't a Natural Born Citizen.
If he's on anyone's ticket as VP, there's no way I can vote for them unless the SCOTUS first redefines the NBC eligibility differently than the original intent of the Founders.