Republican governors in Democratic states [LWN.net]

Republican governors in Democratic states

Posted Sep 3, 2004 19:16 UTC (Fri) by dbhost (guest, #3461)
In reply to: Republican governors in Democratic states by LogicG8
Parent article: Linux in Government: Will Schwarzenegger Terminate Windows? (Linux Journal)

Cute comments, but completely ignorant of the Constitution of The United States of America.

Please see Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5.
"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."

Therefore, with only a rudimentary reading of the Constitution, it should be obvious that Arnold, being born in Austria, is ineligible to become President of The United States of America.

Except of course in movies where the Constitution, or other realities of life do not apply.

(Log in to post comments)

Republican governors in Democratic states

Posted Sep 3, 2004 19:24 UTC (Fri) by Ross (subscriber, #4065) [Link]

Thus the mention of the 61st ammendment in the previous comment :)

Republican governors in Democratic states

Posted Sep 3, 2004 19:26 UTC (Fri) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link]

You're not paying attention. Given a constitutional amendment (e.g. "61st", above), that requirement could be rescinded. We don't just amend the constitution to promise equal rights for women (which resolution passed but was never acted upon) or to forbid citizens the right to marry their choice or partner (not formally proposed yet), or to make corporations legally more powerful than citizens (too late, it's in there). We also entertain frivolous changes, and when that gets too hard, just ignore the damn thing. (E.g. seating presidents and vice presidents who are demonstrably not of "sound mind and body".)

Corporate personhood is Supreme Court doctrine, not explicit in constitution

Posted Sep 4, 2004 0:42 UTC (Sat) by robla (subscriber, #424) [Link]

You wrote: We don't just amend the constitution [...] to make corporations legally more powerful than citizens (too late, it's in there).

It should be mentioned that the U.S. Constitution doesn't explicitly make corporations more powerful than individuals. Rather, the Supreme Court has just interpreted it that way. Though I don't hold much hope for it happening soon, a future Supreme Court may decide to overturn that interpretation, in the same way that "separate but equal" was a doctrine established by one court, and undermined by a latter one (it technically wasn't completely reversed, but the doctrine was no longer doctrine after Brown).

See the Wikipedia article on corporate personhood for more info.

Of course, this is wildly off-topic.

Rob