On February 21, the New Jersey Senate passed SB 119. This is the bill to keep presidential candidates off the ballot if they don’t release copies of their income tax returns, and to prohibit presidential electors from voting for anyone who hasn’t released the tax returns. The vote in the Senate was 23-11.
How soon before SCOTUS issues an opinion on the subject ???
— before or after the 2020 Prez election ???
—
IE — which machination to rig election results in which regime WILL produce Civil WAR II ???
What’s to prevent the Republicans from running a stand-in candidate in New Jersey if Trump won’t reveal his taxes? The chances of Trump winning New Jersey are pretty low anyway.
Once again: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Term_Limits,_Inc._v._Thornton
1) This bill along with those being considered in other states automatically assume that EVERY Presidential candidate has filed a tax return in the year(s) before the election year. The I.R.S. Code does not require a return to be filed when the filers income is below a specific amount based on their filing status and some other stated criteria in the Code.
2) This also ignores the fact that the true candidates on the Presidential ballot are a slate of electors for a particular candidate. So since they are the actual candidates, it seems to me that those people should be the ones ‘forced’ to reveal their tax returns, not the Presidential candidate that they presumably will vote for in the Electoral College.
@Deemer,
Most of the statutes require the five most recent taxable years which the candidate has filed, rather than the last five years. If a candidate files for an extension, they will not have filed for 2019, so they would report 2014-2018 (or even earlier if they had not filed for some of those years).
But if they do file in April 2020, they would report 2015-2019.
Requiring elector candidates to file whether their associated presidential candidate has posted his income tax form violates Gralike. Requiring political parties to not associate with non-tax-filers violates their right of free political association. Political parties have nominated presidential candidates who were imprisoned.