Law professor Vikram David Amar has this column on whether it is constitutional for states to bar candidates for President from appearing on the ballot unless they reveal their income tax returns. He seems to lean to the idea that it would not be constitutional, although he is somewhat ambivalent.
He mentions the U.S. Supreme Court opinion U.S. Term Limits v Thornton, which struck down state laws barring congressional candidates from the ballot if they already served three terms. But he seems to feel that decision doesn’t relate to presidential elections, because the Constitution does not even require states to hold a popular election for presidential electors. But, in my opinion, that is irrelevant. U.S. Term Limits said that neither states nor Congress can add to the qualifications of any federal election office. The decision says, “The Framers envisoned a uniform national system, rejecting the notion that the Nation was a collection of States, and instead creating a direct link between the National Government and the people of the United States.” The theory behind the decision appears to me to relate to president just as much as congress.
No state has ever kept a presidential candidate off its ballot because he or she was in prison. Presidential candidates who have run while in prison include Eugene V. Debs in 1920 and Vincent Hallinan in 1952. Also, the Communist Party presidential nominee in 1940, Earl Browder, was an ex-felon when he ran. Despite the intense hostility toward Browder and the Communist Party in 1940 (because the party was against U.S. involvement in World War II that year, because of the Hitler-Stalin Pact in effect during 1940), no state kept Browder off the ballot because he was an ex-felon. Browder was removed from the ballot in many states in 1940 under other pretexts. Even Ralph Nader in 2004 didn’t face as much ballot access hostility as Browder in 1940.
Ballot access has been a WAR type activity since the SCOTUS hacks failed to have EQUAL ballot access laws in Williams v. Rhodes 1968 — 48 years and counting.
i.e. the usual suspect HACKS using and trying to use all sorts of statutory stuff to RIG election results.
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
But as you’ve said before in various cases, the presidential candidates aren’t actually the candidates in the election, at least not the one on Election Day. The presidential electors are. While it may be unconstitutional to create additional requirements of the *electors*, it wouldn’t be unconstitutional to do that of the presidential candidates, at least not the presidential candidates listed on the ballot. In theory, parties could use stand-in candidates who would instruct their electors to vote for the real candidate (or just do what the Libertarian Party tried to do in 2012 and use someone else with the same name so most people don’t even know what’s going on – Trump’s son could stand in for him and appear as “Donald Trump”) and preventing *that* would be unconstitutional in the “election” voted on by the electors themselves on the appropriate date in December. But since the presidential candidates listed on the ballot on Election Day aren’t the actual candidates in that election, then it shouldn’t matter unless you’re imposing additional restrictions on the electors themselves.
And yes, Trump’s son is technically Donald Trump, Jr, but most states don’t require the entire legal name – they didn’t, for instance, include the “II” after Obama’s name. (According to Wikipedia, Trump’s full name is Donald John Trump, and there’s no suffix at the end.)
Richard: By the time Lyndon LaRouche ran for President the last time, hadn’t he been put into prison by then?
Yes, good point, I forgot about Lyndon LaRouche.
Hmmm. If some HACK was a Fed felon in a Fed jail and got elected Prez, would he/she/it pardon him/her/it self and then give an inaugural address from the jailhouse ???