[EL] Alabama Supreme Court ruling on presidential qualifications

[Derek Muller]

Thanks for this, Richard. The opinion text is available at the Alabama
Supreme Court's website here:
http://judicial.alabama.gov/supreme_opinions.cfm

There are many things to say about this opinion, but Judge Moore gets one
part of the Constitution badly wrong in dissent. He engages in an entire
analysis under the assumption that state law did not empower--or even
forbade--a state election official from evaluating the qualifications of a
presidential candidate.

But it is not the case that the Constitution, as part of the Supremacy
Clause or Oaths Clause, *demands *each election official to independently
investigate the qualifications of presidential candidates and exclude them
from the ballot if they are not qualified. It is one thing to say that the
Constitution dictates that the president must meet certain qualifications
for office; it is another thing entirely to say that *state election
officials *are the ones who are *tasked *with the *duty *of reviewing those
qualifications--and for that, Mr. Moore cites no law, except to claim
vaguely that it is an "obligation" (with the obligatory reference to *Marbury
v. Madison*). Indeed, it may even run afoul of the Presidential Electoral
Clause to seize the manner of selecting electors from the state legislature
and place it in the hands of other election officials in a ballot access
case, absent a directive from the legislature.

Derek

Derek T. Muller

Associate Professor of Law

Pepperdine University School of Law

24255 Pacific Coast Hwy.

Malibu, CA 90263

+1 310-506-7058
SSRN Author Page: http://ssrn.com/author=464341


On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 11:47 AM, Richard Winger <richardwinger at yahoo.com>wrote:

>
> http://www.ballot-access.org/2014/03/alabama-supreme-court-rules-7-2-that-secretary-of-state-has-no-duty-to-examine-constitutional-qualifications-of-presidential-candidates/
>
> Richard Winger
> 415-922-9779415-922-9779
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