California Files Brief Asserting that Requiring a Presidential Candidate to Disclose Tax Returns is not a Qualification

Posted on by

On August 6, the California Secretary of State filed this brief in the federal lawsuits over the new California law on presidential tax returns. Although there are several related cases, it seems simpler to refer to this case as Trump v Padilla, e.d., 2:19cv-1501. The brief relates to all the federal cases.

The state says that requiring presidential candidates to reveal their tax returns is not a qualification because any candidate is free to reveal the returns.

Previous cases have held that requiring federal candidates to take an oath that they do not belong to a group that advocates the violent overthrow of the government is unconstitutional. That type of oath has been held to be a qualification.

The California government brief says the difference between taking an oath, versus revealing one’s tax returns, is that anyone can reveal tax returns, but some candidates may not be able to take a loyalty oath in good conscience. That is a very tenuous distinction. One could say that President Trump can’t in good conscience reveal his tax returns.

The California brief also discusses one of the cases on whether forcing a candidate for federal office to be registered is or is not a qualification. That case is Schaefer v Townsend, a Ninth Circuit case that said California could not keep Michael Schaefer off the ballot (on the grounds that he wasn’t a registered voter in California) because forcing someone to register to vote is adding a qualification. The new California brief seems to suggest that Schaefer could not register in California because he was a registered voter already in Nevada. Therefore he wasn’t able to register in California (although he had homes in both states). Therefore, he was not free to comply. The brief says that is different than revealing a tax return because anyone is free to reveal a tax return.

But the California government brief does not discuss another case, Campbell v Davidson, 233 F.3d 1229 (2000), a Tenth Circuit case. In that case, a Constitution Party candidate for federal office in Colorado refused to register to vote. He lived in Colorado and was entirely free to register if he wanted to. So, there is really no difference between Doug Campbell and Donald Trump. They were or are both free to comply with the law, but they don’t want to. And Doug Campbell won his case in both U.S. District Court and the Tenth Circuit. Both courts said that requiring him to register to vote was adding an qualification and that the state was not permitted to do that.

The California government brief assumes that courts decide these cases with a balancing test. With a balancing test, the court must evaluate whether the restriction is needed, and also weigh how much harm the restriction does to the candidate. But the Ninth Circuit already said in Schaefer that in qualifications cases, the balancing test is not used. The Ninth Circuit said, “The Term Limits Court rejected such a broad reading of the Elections Clause and held the balancing test inapplicable where the challenged provision supplemented the Qualifications Clause and did not regulate a procedural aspect of an election or require a candidate to show a minimum level of support before running.”

Comments

California Files Brief Asserting that Requiring a Presidential Candidate to Disclose Tax Returns is not a Qualification — 16 Comments

  1. RED commuist brief done by RED communist AG hacks — with now standard 1984 book delusions/perversions.

    On to SCOTUS ASAP – before the added on ballot access stuff infects all offices.
    —

    What cannot be done directly cannot be done indirectly. Cummings v. Missouri, 71 U.S. 277, 325 (1867); U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton, 514 U.S. 778, 829 (1995).

    A law must be tested by its operation and effect. Near v. Minnesota, 283 U.S. 697, 708-709 (1931); U.S. Term Limits, Inc., supra, 514 U.S., at 831.

    —
    1995 Term Limits a ballot access case.

  2. Courts have prohibited states from keeping candidates off teh ballot due to having served a certain number of terms (de facto, but not de jure, term limits), because they said it’s a qualification.

    By that logic, this is an added qualification. An that is what it’s clearly intended to be.

  3. Will Trump declare that the CA RED communist regime is an inter-national terrorist gang — connected to the AQ Arab killers/enslavers in Syria-Iraq ???

    — one more step on the SHORT road to Civil WAR II.

    —
    PR and Appv and TOTSOP

  4. Thank you Richard Winger. That was very informative.

    I relate that to a case where a candidate wanted to run for Governor of California during the time prior to top two.

    He was not registered with AIP the required time to run under the AIP label. CA SOS approved the filling and I
    complained. They reversed and stated they made a mistake.

    Robbie Anderson should remember the issue because it was near a decade ago.

  5. Con Law 000001

    Qualifications/Dis-qualifications in Consts can NOT be added/subtracted by mere laws.

    —
    Too many EVIL corrupt/lawless govt HACKS to count – legis, exec and judic.

  7. I think this might be what lawyers call a “close question”. My own opinion is that the requirement that you must produce your tax returns is more like the requirement that you pay a filing fee and/or collection a set number of signatures, and less like the requirement that you be a natural born (whatever that means) citizen, or be a specified number of years old.

    In my opinion, if it is unconstitutional to require tax returns, then it is also unconstitutional to require signatures or nominal filing fees (more than nominal filing fees have been held unconstitutional on equal protection grounds).

  8. Also- major different govt levels stuff – USA / State / foreign.

    What *secret* or illegal stuff did you do for govt X ???
    —
    All ballot access machinations-

    one more reason to put nom pets/filing fee language into Consts

    — as with election dates, qualifications, terms, etc.

  9. @BR,

    Or is it like requiring a candidate to say they support term limits (see Gralike).

    It is compelled speech.

    George Washington and Abraham Lincoln never disclosed their income taxes.

  10. How many USA or State/local income taxes were in effect when GW or AL were alive ???

    See USA income tax law during USA Civil War I era.

  11. @DR,

    California is using the income tax as a pretext to create a process crime, rather than to raise necessary revenues.

  12. Bob Richard, filing fees and petitions are needed to administer the election. We saw the need for petitions or filing fees in 2003, when 135 candidates qualified to run for Governor in the recall election. But income tax returns have nothing to do with election administration. The Ninth Circuit said in Schaefer v Townsend that ballot access requirements are in a class all by themselves from every other type of restriction on who can run.

    The principle that anyone who meets the constitutional qualifications may run is a wonderful aspect of the US Constitution. It made it possible for women to run for congress and have their names printed on government-printed ballots, even before they could vote. It made it possible for Eugene Debs to be on the ballot for president in 1920 even when he was in the federal penitentiary in Atlanta for “espionage.”

  15. If a disclosure requirement constitutes a “qualification” it is a “qualification” that literal every resident is able to meet if s/he chooses to do so.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.