What if someone who was ineligible ran for and won the Presidency?

Hello, I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this but I had a question i was wondering about. With all the talk of Ted Cruz not being born in the U.S. some people are challenging his eligibility to become President.

Regardless, let's pretend that a candidate ran for and won the Presidency only to later be discovered to be definitively ineligible for it shortly after they were sworn in. What would happen? Would he/she just instantly stop being President? Is it like a marriage annulment where they were never legally President? Who would remove them? Would they have to be impeached, would it have to go to the Supreme Court? Could their Vice President become President or because they were chosen by someone who was ineligible would they themselves also be ineligible? In that case who becomes President, the Speaker of the House? Would the electoral college have to be re certified? Would it be a situation sort of like the electoral college was tied and they'd have to send it to the House of Representatives? As you can see it brings up all kinds of interesting questions.

Thanks for your time.

You've left out what I believe is the most likely in that scenario:

The President would resign to avoid a Constitutional crisis.




Nixon had the integrity to do that.

Do you think that the candidates are not thoroughly vetted before the election? The chances of a definite ineligibility not showing up until after the election are too small to be calculated.

The Legislative and Judicial branches will weigh such a complaint if needed. That said, based on the core founding and intent of the US Constitution, Cruz is not a native born citizen, though he was born a US citizen.

Here we go again ...

#brokenrecord

OHRoadwarrior said:

The Legislative and Judicial branches will weigh such a complaint if needed. That said, based on the core founding and intent of the US Constitution, Cruz is not a native born citizen, though he was born a US citizen.

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Cruz acquired his citizenship at birth and did not require naturalization to be a citizen, making him a natural born US citizen.

If you'd like a more aggressive test (as many have proposed or wrongly claimed is currently required...) then they need to be added by amendment or at least set by clear supreme court case law.

Some examples:

Both parents US citizens (double jus sanguinis test)

Both parents US citizens by birth (super double jus sanguinis test)

US Born only (super jus soli test)

2 factor test - US citizen by birth AND US Born (mega jus sanguinis and jus soli test)

2 factor test - Both parents US citizen and AND US Born (hyper jus sanguinis and jus soli test)

2 factor test - Both parents US citizens by birth and AND US Born (ultra jus sanguinis and jus soli test)


This would be big changes in many areas of citizenship. Right now there are naturalized citizens and natural born citizens and that's it.

What if people didn't ask hypothetical questions here?

What if we all ignore them?

What is Art?

OHRoadwarrior said:

The Legislative and Judicial branches will weigh such a complaint if needed. That said, based on the core founding and intent of the US Constitution, Cruz is not a native born citizen, though he was born a US citizen.

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the requirement is not a native born citizen. The requirement is NATURAL born citizen and so far the bulk of Constitutional scholars weighing in, that I have read of, believe Cruz to be a natural born citizen.

No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

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Silverplum said:

What if people didn't ask hypothetical questions here?

What if we all ignore them?

What is Art?

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Or, who is Art? Easier question. There's Art Carney, Art Buchwald...

I'mTheFather said:

Or, who is Art? Easier question. There's Art Carney, Art Buchwald...

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it was a jeopardy answer.

I'mTheFather said:

Or, who is Art? Easier question. There's Art Carney, Art Buchwald...

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Garfunkel.

( I might have to use that as an exclamation, now I think about it )

justalayman said:

it was a jeopardy answer.

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Damn! I miss so much by not watching Jeopardy!

On a totally different, but just as relevant, topic, is anyone else creeped out by the Cottonelle commercials where the woman asks people if they've wiped their bums? Then suggests Cottonelle and going commando? One was just on, and... ewwwwww!

yes, that is a bit disconcerting. The worst part is she is suggesting everybody runs around with a messy butt if they don't use cottenelle. Personally I would be offended and would offer to show her what my brand of TP accomplishes.

they simply ignore the real purpose of wearing underwear; Post-micturition dribble

My apologies if my question injected an unwanted overtone of partisanship, that was not my intention. I only cited Cruz because his story has been in the news recently and it's what made me think of the question. I'm a Canadian so really it doesn't matter to me whether he's eligible or not. I was merely wondering as an intellectual exercise. So any party Republican, Democrat, Independent, Whig I don't care. I don't even care if the ineligibility was something other than whether they were a natural born citizen. Maybe they forged documents to say they were 35 years old when they were in fact 34 and had someone alter databases to that effect on their behalf. Maybe they've only lived in the U.S. for 13 years when 14 is required. I really don't care why they're ineligible.

Of course I know the U.S. has the most vigorous vetting system in the world, I was merely wondering in your expert legal opinions what you believe would happen if this were to occur and let's say for argument's sake the person did not have Nixon's integrity and refused to resign and had to be removed from office. If you're not willing to speak to the question I would very respectfully and humbly ask you to extricate yourself from the conversation so that those who do care can discuss it.

Thanks for your time.