California Supreme Court says law requiring presidential candidates to turn over tax returns is inva

[PBC_Democrat]

Source: CNN

"The California Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously ruled the state's new law that requires presidential candidates to disclose their tax returns for the previous five years to get on the ballot is invalid."



Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/21/politics/california-tax-returns-trump/index.html

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If we can't get this done in CA, it doesn't look promising for the rest of the country.
Of course, I expected it to be upheld and Trump would simply ignore the state since he had no chance of winning it.

I really didn't expect a unanimous ruling on this.

Any ideas on how they can amend this to pass scrutiny?

[SWBTATTReg]

1. I don't understand this at all (the ruling). What about the overriding concern of conflicts of ...

interest? It's looking more and more like rump does his foreign policy based upon the businesses that he has in foreign countries, and the rest of them, if he doesn't have any properties or plans to develop one, well, there are a sh**hole country.

Conflict of interest is a big big big concern. Rump is pure evidence of this.

[Raven123]

2. State Constitutional Amendment perhaps

[CincyDem]

3. Have no details on the rationale but if it was unanimous, then Goodwin Liu agreed.

His reputation is that of a liberal GIANT when it comes to legal thinking. I was disappointed that BHO didn't reach out to him for SCOTUS, although he probably wouldn't have gotten a vote in McConnell's Senate.

If he agreed with this ruling, it leads me to the conclusion that there's a flaw in the law or its underlying premise. He's no stooge. (IMHO)

[BirdandSquirrel]

4. My Opinion On This Is

My opinion on this matter is that no State Government can override the Federal Government.

I understand that States run their elections by their own laws and rules. However, they do not choose the Candidates for Federal office outside of their primaries or caucuses. These candidates are chosen by the Political Parties, and they are not bound by any particular State law or rule.

Were there to be a Federal Law in place, that would be a completely different situation. I know that this is not a popular point of view, but I see it as the legal basis for this decision.

[still_one]

7. Exactly. Not surprised at this at all. I thought it was stupid for the governor to push it. You

cannot change the requirements to run for President at the state level, and that is essentially what they were doing by this

[LovingA2andMI]

5. Supremacy Cause...

"Article VI, Paragraph 2 of the U.S. Constitution is commonly referred to as the Supremacy Clause. It establishes that the federal constitution, and federal law generally, take precedence over state laws, and even state constitutions. It prohibits states from interfering with the federal government's exercise of its constitutional powers, and from assuming any functions that are exclusively entrusted to the federal government. It does not, however, allow the federal government to review or veto state laws before they take effect.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/supremacy_clause"

[BirdandSquirrel]

6. Legal Basis

Exactly! This is the Legal Basis for the California Supreme Court decision.

[cstanleytech]

8. What we need is a transparency law over who provides the money to anyone that

runs ads that are political and or issues ads.

[aggiesal]

14. We did until Citizens United ...

threw all that out the window, intentionally!

[DetroitLegalBeagle]

9. Expected

The Constitution dictates the requirements to run for federal office. States cannot change that.

[ArizonaLib]

12. I don't disagree with you - do you anything about that court's discussions

about who is/is not allowed on a ballot? I am interested in knowing more about that - I know nothing about CA laws and am far from ever even knowing someone who practices constitutional law. I understand that the constitution says 35 years, naturalized citizen, etc. but nothing else.

[DetroitLegalBeagle]

18. The requirements are pretty simple

The Constitution lays out 3 main requirements, at least 35 years old, a natural born citizen, and a resident of the US for at least 14 years. Technically there are 3 disqualifiers as well. The original disqualifier is that the candidate has not been impeached and disqualified from holding office. The other 2 come from Amendments, the first one is a relic of Reconstruction, which barred former Confederate politicians and military who had originally swore an oath to the US and then joined the Confederates. The other is term limits, you can't run if your election would violate Presidential term limits.

I have not yet read through the courts opinion yet though, so I don't know the exact grounds they invalidated it with.

[ArizonaLib]

29. Thanks!

I appreciate it!

[BlueTsunami2018]

10. I think we all knew this stood no chance anywhere.

It stood a slight chance for state primaries but zero chance for federal Presidential elections.

[LiberalFighter]

11. They would be right in regards to the general election.

But not the primary. The primaries are a political party function. The constitution and federal government does not have sway over the operation of a political party operation.

[TryLogic]

13. Final presidential candidates need to have security clearance !!

This would be a national issue rather than a state issue.

It is crazy that any clown or foreign agent or mobster can become president if he or she can con the public into voting for him/her. We have now seen why this is a humongous problem.

[Igel]

28. Except that the authority for issuing a clearance is the executive.

I don't see how you'd bind the EC (or voters) from electing somebody without a clearance, and once elected I don't think a small dept of the executive branch should be gatekeeper and say, "Sorry, voters, you'll just have to try again--may we suggest you pick a better choice, one that we'll easily grant a clearance to?"

[TryLogic]

31. Apparently there needs to be some sort of structural change.

I'm not buying that it can't be done.

[djg21]

15. It's a essentially a First Amendment issue

Voters have a right to vote for a candidate of their choosing, and may penalize a candidate for not disclosing tax information by declining to vote for the candidate. The disclosure of tax returns always has been customary, but not a legal requirement.

I know this was addressed under the State Constitution rather than the US Constitution, but the rationale is analogous. And it’s probably not wrong, despite the fact that we would have preferred a different result.

[aggiesal]

16. Here is what the judges decided ...

Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, joined by Associate Justices Goodwin Liu, Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, Carol Corrigan, Leondra Kruger, Ming Chin, and Joshua Groban, wrote the following in the court's opinion:

"The Legislature may well be correct that a presidential candidate's income tax returns could provide California voters with important information. But article II, section 5(c) embeds in the state Constitution the principle that, ultimately, it is the voters who must decide whether the refusal of a 'recognized candidate throughout the nation or throughout California for the office of President of the United States' to make such information available to the public will have consequences at the ballot box."

I disagree with this decision, because it's tell us voters that we have to reject a candidate or accept a candidate without acquiring all the pertinent information to make our decisions.

... to make such information available to the public will have consequences at the ballot box.

Well duh!
If the candidate has a conflict of interest, we should be able to know that and of course it could have consequences at the ballot box.

[TheRickles]

22. Associate Justice Josh Groban?! n/t

[aggiesal]

23. That's what it said ...

it was unanimous.

Joshua Paul Groban is an American attorney and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of California. He was appointed to the California Supreme Court by Governor Jerry Brown on November 14, 2018, to replace Associate Justice Kathryn Werdegar, who retired on August 31, 2017.

Are you thinking about the singer?

[TheRickles]

25. Yes, I was just joking about the similar name. Thanks for this info on the "other" JG. n/t

[bucolic_frolic]

17. So much for states' rights

California sets rules on many things Californian. One state, TN or KY, doesn't even require vehicle inspections, but most do. So I'm not understanding it.

States have lots of requirements to get on a ballot. Number of signatures, verified, for example. States can run referendums in a manner that they choose, if they choose. There are state laws or state Constitutions that empower them to do this. Feds have nothing to do with it.

I think they should have approached this tax return requirement as part of the commerce clause. Lots of hoops to do business in California, and what is more business than running the world's largest economy?

[Polybius]

32. Vehicle inspections aren't in the Constitution

The requirements for being President are. This decision was unanimous by a liberal CA Supreme Court. They had no choice to strike it down.

[Nitram]

33. Dude, it's the Constitution. The Law of the Land. The Court had no choice in the matter.

[Cicada]

19. The constitution provides the requirements, not the states

I always assumed this California law would be struck down.

[OneCrazyDiamond]

20. Trump has been mucking with the 9th

Maybe the justices knew the appeal would land on trumpers.

[Doormouse]

21. Supreme Court has ruled on this. Twice.

"U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton, 514 U.S. 779 (1995), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that states cannot impose qualifications for prospective members of the U.S. Congress stricter than those specified in the Constitution. The decision invalidated the Congressional term limit provisions of 23 states."

"Powell v. McCormack, 395 U.S. 486 (1969), is a United States Supreme Court case that held that the Qualifications of Members Clause of Article I of the US Constitution is an exclusive list of qualifications of members of the House of Representatives, which may exclude a duly-elected member for only those reasons enumerated in that clause. "

This also applies to President/VP.

And Supreme Court rulings on Ballot Eligibility pretty much pertain to proof of support.

[yaesu]

24. it will probably require an amended constitution to include such a requirement. nt

[zentrum]

26. Bad News.

Of course eventually it would have been appealed to the Supreme Court and we all know what would happen there.

[Jake Stern]

27. Should have listened to Jerry Brown

He had the good sense to veto an earlier incarnation of this bill when it came before him because he knew it would be struck down.

“While I recognize the political attractiveness – even the merits – of getting President Trump’s tax returns, I worry about the political perils of individual states seeking to regulate presidential elections in this manner,” Brown wrote in a veto message. “First, it may not be constitutional. Second, it sets a ‘slippery slope’ precedent. Today we require tax returns, but what would be next? Five years of health records? A certified birth certificate? High school report cards? And will these requirements vary depending on which political party is in power?”

More: https://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/16/jerry-brown-trump-tax-returns-bill-243799

[Polybius]

30. Good ruling

Unanimous too, so they had no choice.