Left on Citizenship

Arizona:

The Left side of the blogosphere really doesn't like Arizona's new law requiring presidential candidates to produce proof of citizenship. Some of these responses are quite remarkable.

I understand the need they feel to defend the President on this score. However, leaving this President out of it entirely -- isn't this a perfectly reasonable requirement? Let's look at the Constitution.

First, the Constitution has fairly minimal requirements for who can be considered a possible President:

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.

So, can a felon be considered? Certainly! Can someone be elected to the office who is currently in prison? Yes! (And then he can pardon himself!) If you want to exercise your second amendment rights in Georgia, you must provide your fingerprints to the state for a thorough background check; but that isn't necessary to be President.

However, you must be (a) a natural-born citizen, (b) thirty-five years old, and (c) a resident for fourteen years. (That means I would be ineligible: I lived in China ten years ago!)

Now, why should the states have any say in requiring that you prove these minimal standards are met?

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

So, the state legislature may direct the manner of the appointment of electors. What does that mean?

Well, one thing it means is that the states can impose requirements on electors. Electors must, say, be college graduates; or they must not be felons; or whatever else you might require (except that no persons holding an office of trust or profit, senators nor representatives may be appointed).

For example, you can require them not to be faithless, according to SCOTUS:

A faithless elector is one who casts an electoral vote for someone other than whom they have pledged to elect, or who refuses to vote for any candidate. There are laws to punish faithless electors in 24 states. In 1952, the constitutionality of state pledge laws was brought before the Supreme Court in Ray v. Blair, 343 U.S. 214 (1952). The Court ruled in favor of state laws requiring electors to pledge to vote for the winning candidate, as well as removing electors who refuse to pledge. As stated in the ruling, electors are acting as a functionary of the state, not the federal government. Therefore, states have the right to govern electors.

So, can the state require its electors to sign a pledge that they will vote for no candidate who has not produced proof that they meet the minimal requirements for the office under the U.S. Constitution? I can't see any Constitutional reason why they could not do so.

Ought the states to do so? Well, somebody should be in charge of ensuring that the Constitutional requirements are met. I'm not sure the state level is ideal, as it would leave some states open to not ensuring that the Constitution was being followed; but there definitely needs to be some place in the procedure where some competent authority checks to ensure that the law is being followed. This isn't a small matter, after all. We're talking about the President of the United States. If the Constitution isn't to be enforced in this matter, which involves the greatest concentration of power and authority within the entire government, where shall it be enforced?