Something the Dog Said wrote: The US Constitution sets the qualifications for running for federal office, the states can only set qualifications for state office.
Indeed it does, but it is silent, and thus a power reserved to the sovereign states and their citizens,.
Oh for Pete's sake, PS! The Constitution is "silent" on whether the State's could decide to require that ballots be produced and executed with dissappearing ink! You can claim that any lunatic idea "could" be the right of the States, but you'd still be propounding a lunatic interpretation. I think it's safe to say the authors of the founding documents assumed a base level of sanity among future leaders of the States. And sometimes, especially when I hear some statement like the one you just made, I think they were stupid to assume even that.
Wait - wait. You really think a group of people who had just fought a war to escape the despotism and tyranny of a single government invested with all power of governance was going to give to a new government the same powers and ability? And you say I'm the one claiming lunatic ideas?
There is a reason the 20th Amendment contains instruction on what is to be done if someone who fails to qualify for the office is elected to hold it AV. The reason is that it was recognized that it is possible for it to occur because no arm of the federal government, no clause in the Constitution, has the ability to prevent that from happening. There exists no federal requirement that a candidate prove their eligibility to the satisfaction of any federal government agency prior to seeking election to the office. Not to the federal Congress, not to the federal Judiciary, not to the federal executive. What do you would happen if the nation had just elected a new President only to find out that the person wasn't able to qualify for the office? What do you think would happen if they were found to be ineligible after taking the oath of office? What happened when one president ended up effectively being president for life? There was an end put to another one every trying, and quickly, and for good reason. Should we not also seek to avoid the scenario of electing an ineligible candidate? If so, in whom should that be entrusted? The individual political parties? The federal government? Why shouldn't it be, and wouldn't it have always been, entrusted to each individual state? Is there not more safety associated with multiple entities having the opportunity to discover the ineligibility rather than a single one? Is this alone not a sufficiently good reason for them to have the sovereignty and power in the matter?
No AV, I am not the lunatic here. The lunatic is the one who feels that all power should rest in a single entity. The sane person realizes that power divided is power checked.
