Talk:United States presidential eligibility legislation

Arkansas (2011)

Arkansas introduced presidential eligibility legislation in 2011, but it is hard to find a WP:RS. Please add if a RS is found. --Weazie (talk) 08:05, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Birth Certificate Request

Whats up with all those people asking that candidates must have birth certificates to prove their citizenship between 2009 to 2011? I'm sensing a pattern here but can't put my finger on it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.29.85.42 (talk) 20:19, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Rising to what is evidently a somewhat naive question, none the less raises a more serious secondary question, whether the contents of these sections should not at the end of the Obama Presidency be transferred to a section in the Barack Obama page. Wikipedia should be factual, and although criticism of an incumbent President is a fact, it must be distinguished from generic criticism or constraints on the Presidency as a whole, and that criterion, I would argue, should be used as the basis for transferring those sections which are not legally-consolidated into the general qualification onus any President to a section on critiques in the Obama meme. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 176.249.86.162 (talk) 06:27, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

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Requirement to provide Past Income Tax Forms

This article talks about New York and California. http://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/350789-california-legislature-passes-bill-requiring-presidential-candidates-to • Sbmeirow • Talk • 10:51, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Birther content tossed

I've tossed all the birther stuff that was copied over from it's own page. It does not belong here. It already has it's own page, that is all it deserves. If the birthers wanna cry about this they can click the link that will bring them to their safe space. I've had enough of their nonsense. Allthenamesarealreadytaken (talk) 04:51, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Much of the information in this article was copied from the Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories article so it could be deleted there, to make that article shorter. Without restoring the information there, deletion here defeats the purpose of why this article was created in the first place. --Weazie (talk) 06:36, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't think that is the correct way of doing things. This article is supposed to be about what the United States presidential eligibility legislation actually is, not what a bunch of conspiracy theory fools did with Obama's birth certificate. The two are only tangentially connected. One is about what the law is, the other is a bunch of conspiracy theory idiocy. They should only have separate articles. Allthenamesarealreadytaken (talk) 23:41, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Allthenamesarealreadytaken, You have "tossed all the birther stuff" twice, the second time after having your edit reverted. This IS NOT an effective way of reaching consensus (please see: Wikipedia:BRD). For your edit to gain my support (I cannot speak for others) you need to show that the information you removed regarding federal and state presidential eligibility legislation has been added to or already exists in another article. Will you do that? Another question I have is, why didn't you cut the "Presidential eligibility" section and leave the rest? You may not have realized it, but, that section's sole purpose was to provide background and constitutional context for the sections that followed. Without those sections there is no reason for this page/article to exist, except as a redirect to President of the United States#Eligibility. Drdpw (talk) 01:23, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Yeah I'm in the same boat. I'll listen, but that's way too large a reversion to do without consensus. Isingness (talk) 07:24, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

I've reverted again. WP:BRD means discussing after the first reversion. There obviously is no consensus for the proposed edit -- which is tantamount to blanking. As the lead says, this article is about legislative attempts to require proof of eligibility from candidates. By blanking most of the body of the article, there is nothing of note remaining; it is deletion in all but name. A discussion about constructive edits is welcome; an edit war is are not. --Weazie (talk) 07:45, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

The problem here is that when you search for POTUS eligibility requirements you get this page instead of President of the United States#Eligibility. That's a problem becasue this page is more about all the birther nonsense than it is about US presidential eligibility. Therefore I propose this page be renamed to "Barack Obama presidential eligibility legislation" or "Birther legislation." After all, the name of the movement behind all this legislation and lirtigation was "Birther" was it not? Allthenamesarealreadytaken (talk) 00:05, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps a distilled/consolidated version of the "Birther legislation" section could be rolled into Natural-born-citizen clause#Barack Obama and the article title (page) redirected to the President of the United States#Eligibility. Drdpw (talk) 02:56, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

"Birther" is a pejorative; WP:NPOV dictates avoid using it in the article unnecessarily. There was an effort to ensure that "birther" appeared in various articles only in a direct quotation, but I've seen some non-quotation creep in various articles. --Weazie (talk) 20:14, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

OK, now we've got some basis for discussing what the best thing is to do with this and associated articles. Let's keep discussing. Just please don't go imposing your own version on the page again without a consensus of other editors, or else you're likely to get blocked for edit-warring (WP:EW).

A question of my own here, following on the above: Is there any legislation (not just a recap of what the Constitution says) worth mentioning on the subject of presidential eligibility that is not directly related to Obama birtherism? — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 01:20, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

No there is not; all of the state-level legislative proposals—none of which became law—were advanced by those who asserted that Barack Obama was not a natural-born U.S. citizen, or by those who latched onto the issue because of their disdain for Obama. Drdpw (talk) 02:56, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Having thought about the above discussion, I tend to agree it would be better to (1) synthesize this article down to a few paragraphs that could be remerged back into the original Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories article; and (2) delete this article. Mainly because the wide, sustained efforts to alter eligibility legislation in response to President Obama are interesting and noteworthy, but the list of failed legislative attempts is less so and could be summarized.

I think the first steps would be to start a discussion on talk page of the main article, to see if there are objections there to the remerge. And, assuming no objections, then to draft a proposed edit for what would go there. And then, finally, request deletion of this article. --Weazie (talk) 20:25, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

What to do with the presidential election birth certificate legislation information? I have a few thoughts related to your proposal Weazie:

• Given the nature and importance of this talk page discussion, deleting the article page itself (as opposed to redirecting it) isn't prudent as the talk page would be deleted as well, and history would be lost.
• As the Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories article is already fairly large, 207,737 bytes as of its most recent edit on June 9, 2020, perhaps a better place to nest the synthesized paragraphs from this article would be in the Barack Obama section of the related and smaller Natural-born-citizen clause article, 142,071 bytes as of June 9, 2020.
• I seems to me that the first steps here are for someone to produce a draft text and then post it in a new discussion thread, and also to note the discussion on the talk pages of the above-noted articles.

Cheers. Drdpw (talk) 22:08, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

The Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories article already is long, yet I'm (reluctantly) suggesting that it be enlarged. But I don't think the information here belongs in the Natural-born-citizen clause article because there was an effort to focus that article on the legal concepts, and to minimize discussions about the specifics facts surrounding each candidate. Moreover, that article focuses on a specific clause of the U.S. Constitution; this article chronicles efforts mostly directed at the state level.

The concerns about proper archiving are reasonable; maybe the solution is simply to substantially trim this article. --Weazie (talk) 22:27, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps after moving / removing the conspiracy info, this article could focus on how the relevant requirements in the constitution were justfied and how they have changed / how changes were justified. I agree that the actual rules for the requirements set by various states should be left in and perhaps a paragraph about Obama's election conspiracies that pushed for these laws but the article focuses entirely on Obama and birtherism at the moment. It makes it seem like this page has been politically hijacked but honestly you all seem reasonable. Can we get some movement on this? We're quickly headed into the election and the focus (or maybe the title) of this article should have been fixed long ago. Cyrus40540057 (talk) 18:25, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

I added back a slimmed down version of the section on Posey's bill. Its singular removal wasn't consistent with any of the above-stated goals. Weazie (talk) 18:52, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

Constitutional eligibility contradiction using Original research

The eligibility requirements in this article contains Original Research WP:OR stating "includes that of the President" is WP:SYN and contradicts secondary sources in Officer under the United States. The list item below is primary source only WP:PRIMARY and should not be part of Wikipedia. Neither the word President nor the office of the President are mentioned in the citation.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.46.249.141 (talk) 03:48, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

No deletion; instead added to a link to the Officer of the United States article, as well as a link to a secondary source saying the president is an officer of the United States. --Weazie (talk) 04:29, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Delete; A new citation contains no mention at all of disqualification and makes the article worse with more WP:SYNTHESIS. Even with synthesis fails to justify inclusion of the list item: The citation recently included appears to be a debate which two scholars offer WP:PRIMARY interpretations, saying both the President is and is not an officer providing arguments on each side. Only one side is presented by the editor WP:NPOV. The citation fails WP:IMPARTIAL as it is misquoted and misrepresents one side as a fact. The cite quote is not WP:BALANCED. On the same page the editor cites, p. 157, the same author who allegedly affirms the President as an "officer" concedes his opponent's position with this quote:

That leaves us with Tillman’s argument about the Commissions Clause, where, as I conceded in my Opening Statement, he has a valid point. The Commissions Clause commands that the President must commission all the officers of the United States, and yet no President has commissioned himself, his successor, or his Vice President. Thus, Tillman has an argument from practice that Presidents and Vice Presidents either have not been regarded as being officers of the United States or at least that the question has been embarrassingly overlooked.

The new citation greatly diminishes this article. Please immediately delete the list item from the article and talk about it here until WP:VERIFY is met.
--47.196.197.231 (talk) 16:56, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Deleted - This "Article 1" list item is removed, do not replace without a good citation please WP:VERIFY. It also contradicts verified sources.

--Frobozz1 (talk) 04:29, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

• Re-inserted After a five second google search. As for the argument that "any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States" does not somehow also include that of the president, I'm a bit flabbergasted as that is more or less obvious, and well clarifying that to our readers is not in any way a bad idea. Even the Senate source I cited does say: "The president, vice president, and all civil officers of the United States are subject to impeachment."; so it specifically points out both the president and the vice-president; as well as all other public offices. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 21:55, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

You claim the section is based on WP:PRIMARY. In this case, this would be an acceptable use of such sources (since they're used to support material directly about them; i.e. the most reliable source for the content of the US Constitution, unsurprisingly, is the US Constitution itself). However, it also appears that most of the content is sourced not to the constitution but to sites which provide secondary commentary on it, i.e. WP:SECONDARY sources. I fail to see the grounds for your objections; and in any case, the constitutional requirements for president are certainly a necessary starting point to discuss the article topic. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:32, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

• Deleted - Failed verification. NOTE: this is in discussion. Please observe the WP:BRD cycle and discuss sources, as the consensus reached was that WP:MAINSTREAM opinion holds the Amendment 1 eligibility as debatable. Further insertion of Article 1 as "fact" may be seen as WP:EDIT WARRING without (3RR).
  

This content failed verification once and was removed. RandomCanadian inserted the consensus view that there was a debate, and has now re-inserted as "fact" a personal narrative disregarding the consensus based on "more or less obvious" OR.

The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and it is satisfied by providing an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contribution.

Directly supports and More or less obvious are different things, nor is the legal and Constitutional use of the word "office" in any possible way obvious.

Directly supports: It is required that any source used here states cannot be elected as President, because there are more than one federal position which is "elected;" and the citation must state that the cause of that ineligibility to the Presidency is a judgement under Article 1 in order for this to be used in a Wikipedia article which is very specifically about eligibility to be President of the United States, and then makes a factual claim that impeachment will cause that ineligibility. You have made that factual claim and provided no WP:VERIFIABLE support. The "factual" claim is also directly contradicted by the more reliable Reuters citation.

The Jan Wolfe article clearly expresses a WP:MAINSTREAM point of view;

“ There is some debate over the scope of the disqualification clause and whether it applies to the presidency, said Brian Kalt, a law professor at Michigan State University.

Analyzing historical documents, some law experts say the founders did not intend the presidency to be considered an “office” under the disqualification clause

”

The editorial citation fails WP:MAINSTREAM as it is the WP:PRIMARY source opinion of only one lawyer alone (published in the Ideas section of The Atlantic magazine).
It is already established that the fourteenth Amendment prohibits officials who committed misdeeds like rebellion from being elected to Congress, and Mr. Bernstein clearly states this example in the quote used to prove an eligibility requirement: "the Constitution adds a category of people who cannot be elected [to Congress] as a result of their misdeeds [of rebellion]."

Mr. Bernstein does not state that impeachment + disqualification causes any ineligibility for the Presidency, his narrative - "This category includes..." - only puts impeached persons into the same box of persons who may be denied some unspecified election, for some unspecified misdeeds.

The Atlantic is saying what we all already know. We understand that the Constitution creates a box for people who rebell, and then declares that people in that box cannot be elected to a seat in Congress. They indeed will be denied election to a Congressional seat if they also rebell, but there is no place where Bernstein says people in that box will be ineligible to become President. Any cite used here must meet the WP:BURDEN to state this without WP:SYNTHESIS and must present a WP:MAINSTREAM POV derived from a WP:VER source. Because it is factually true and possible to read Bernstein's opinion as "This category [of people who cannot be elected to Congress as a result of rebellion] includes presidents (along with vice presidents and federal “civil officers”) who are impeached, convicted by two-thirds of the Senate, and disqualified for serious misconduct committed while they were in office," this citation fails the WP:BURDEN and is being removed.

You were correct to "clarify" but not correct to use OR to make a factual definition of a well-defined legal term. An "office" is in all cases a tenured position with sovereignty; the POTUS very obviously (and both Court and Congress has stated) has neither tenure (his term ends exactly after four years) nor sovereignty (he only gets the job after the States trust him, and must leave when they no longer trust of him). This is why the POTUS is defined as an Article VI Public trust. The seat is owned by the public and filled by a person who the public has given their trust to in a general election. Every four years he gets a "report card" and we tell him if we still trust him to do our bidding. George Washington's 1796 farewell address opens with a very clear summary of his position:

“ The period for a new election of a citizen to administer the executive government of the United States being not far distant, and the time actually arrived when your thoughts must be employed in designating the person who is to be clothed with that important trust ”

I suggest that quality subverts quantity; creating this narrative of a factual Article 1 disqualification from Presidential eligibility is a fruitless unicorn hunt. We understand that a large number of editors would like it to become believed through offhand insinuations, as conflict creates revenue. What disqualification exactly means has been very clearly understood for over 200 years, this confusion only creates with WP:VERIFIED articles here and turns Wikipedia into a tabloid. @RandomCanadian: — Preceding unsigned comment added by Frobozz1 (talk • contribs) 19:08, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

Background: The U.S. Constitution on presidential eligibility

• Under Article I, Section 3, Clause 7, upon conviction in impeachment cases, the Senate has the option to order, by a simple majority, that an individual be forever disqualified from holding federal office, which includes that of president. 199.46.249.141 (talk) 03:48, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

References

14th Amendment list item failed verification. Removing until secondary source is found.

The citation mentions "elector of President" but not the President. Delete 14th amendment until secondary source citation is found. --Frobozz1 (talk) 04:42, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

Conclusion, hopefully

• After some further digging, I have found an explicit source for Art. I Clause 7; and I have found sources which clearly discuss both of these as subject to legal debate, so I have included that information too. Removing it, now that we have proper reliable source coverage, would be counter-productive; especially now that I've taken the time to WP:FIXIT. Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 04:57, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

The opening needs to change "would, however, still be disqualified" to "may be disqualified". & I think it needs to be WP:BALANCED, a quick read of the article suggests a disqualified president likely could be ineligible, a position neither citation states if you filter out WP:SENSATIONALISM. The citations conclude the following:

1. The Atlantic has an eye-catching headline that says, "Lots of People Are Disqualified From Becoming President"
   The whole thing basically says the president should be ineligible because others are, like foreigners and young senators and doesn't give facts.
   

Giving due weight to the fact that this is one lawyer's opinion, he says disqualification is a "too early argument" that he disagrees with. He factually says that the "too late argument" was "rebutted" (that the President can't be tried after leaving office). But other than emotional appeals he doesn't say Article 1 can stop anyone from being elected even though he thinks it "would be right" if it could do that.

1. The Reuters article is easy. Wolfe basically plays around with banning Trump from "office" without really talking about which office. They interview a law professor from Michigan who says some law experts say the founders intended the presidency to be considered an “office” and others said they didn't, but "If you are going to say someone can’t run, you want to get that litigated and settled sooner rather than later," because the Supreme Court will likely want to rule if it is lawful.

OK, so that's the meat and potatoes of the citations, feel free to look for more "meat" if you find it. What I think this article should say would be the following.

1) Article 1, §3, clause 7 allows Congress to disqualify impeached persons from future office but there is no current consensus among law experts that the presidency is an "office" in the way the Constitution defines them in the Appointments Clause. This disqualification has only ever been used on three judicial officers who were clearly holding constitutional offices.

2) The 12th Amendment prevents certain officials who have taken an oath and committed treason or rebelled against the United States from holding certain offices unless the Senate approves of them with a 2/3 vote. Law experts suggest the Supreme Court should litigate any attempt to prevent any citizen from running for office to determine if that is legal, because again there is no agreement if the presidency is a constitutional "office under the united states."

It could use tweaking but that's the gist of the citations I think. Have at it.--199.46.251.141 (talk) 04:28, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

This man's job is to rebell.

-EEng

Coatrack

This article is about "several state legislatures [that considered] legislation aimed at requiring future presidential candidates to show proof of presidential eligibility before being granted ballot access in their state." Whether the Senate may disqualify an impeached and convicted president has nothing to do with this article; no state legislature has proposed legislation requiring convicted presidents to show that they also weren't disqualified. --Weazie (talk) 17:50, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

To be fair, this whole article could probably be somehow merged with the one on the litigation (the section on the main article about the conspiracy theory already logically groups them). As to whether the details about eligibility disqualifications are UNDUE here, it would be painting an uncomplete picture (thus, error by omission) to not include it in some way. Maybe I can try summarising it instead. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:02, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

The revised final paragraph in the "Background" looks good to me; thanks. But if it continues to be a coatrack to dispute whether a president can be disqualified following a conviction in the Senate, the better course of action would be to just delete the entire paragraph, as it adds little to this article's actual topic and therefore is WP:UNDUE. --Weazie (talk) 23:36, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

As I said the more long-term solution might be to simply merge this together with Barack Obama presidential eligibility litigation since all of this should be covered with the context of the Birther conspiracy (which there was no mention of here until I added a small paragraph). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:51, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

That would be consistent with the discussion above. I think it is more a question of someone volunteering to take the laboring oar. Weazie (talk) 05:37, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

@Frobozz1: Please tell me where you see "consensus" (either here or in the previous sections) to 1) include text which was never in the article and 2) make the section even longer that it is (when there's clear agreement that it needs to be kept short so as not to go off-topic; and you previously said it shouldn't even be in here). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:30, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

The consensus was that the applicability was debated. Text was made less ambiguous hoping to avert another editorial "fact" inclusion. I agree it should be shorter, I don't know how to accomplish the goal of saying both concisely and conclusively that "there exists a debate" about the applicability of Article 1 and 14th Amendment to the Presidency, so I dumped all the relevant facts. Edit at will but please don't change what is established as fact.

--Frobozz1 (talk) 00:07, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

The idea was that, for the same reasons that we don't include all the details about the 22nd amendment here, we don't include all the details about these two others here (since we agreed that it needed to be shortened) - I've put it verbatim with all the details at President_of_the_United_States#Eligibility instead. We could insert a fragment, but I'm not sure where without making the sentence awkward (a footnote, maybe?). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:39, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

I have been consistent and clear that a "dispute" about whether a convicted president can also be disqualified has nothing to do with this article. That this material nonetheless is repeatedly being inserted further shows it being used as a WP:COATRACK. Literally nothing about a president's possible disqualification is relevant to this article, which is about legislation requiring proof of eligibility. --Weazie (talk) 07:46, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

Background agrees with other articles. Talk please

Article One of the United States Constitution#Clause 7: Judgment in cases of impeachment; Punishment on conviction and Impeachment in the United States#Removal and disqualification were in contradiction. Please discuss before adding new contradictions.
Thank you. --Frobozz1 (talk) 00:25, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Please explain what the contradiction is exactly, merely saying there is one without saying what it is is akin to an argumentum ad lapidem. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:54, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

This is the only place alleging as fact that a President can be ineligible via impeachment or the 14th. In fact the POTUS article now also contradicts this one. You had it nearly perfect with the last accepted version, which was at least factually accurate and accurately represented the WP:MAINSTREAM parts of the citations.

What exactly is the value add of this Bernstein The Atlantic:Ideas article you don't want to let go of?. How can you mash his opinion into an article so it is WP:MAINSTREAM and "directly supports the statement" "A person... could still be disqualified from holding the office of president having... been disqualified from holding further public office subsequent to an impeachment and conviction under Article I, Section 3, Clause 7" I'm genuinely interested. Make that thing worthy of Wikipedia and let's be done with it.

--Frobozz1 (talk) 01:27, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Amen.

• Only minor word-tweak: 22nd makes you "unelectable" not ineligible - it matters.
• Also disqualification by Art. 1 & 14th is not a "could" - ineligibility is binding; only what they are disqualified from is debated.

References

What's not clear about that quote? "This category includes presidents (along with vice presidents and federal “civil officers”) who are impeached, convicted by two-thirds of the Senate, and disqualified for serious misconduct committed while they were in office." -> important bits only: This includes presidents who are impeached, convicted by two-thirds of the Senate, and disqualified [...] -> reworded to avoid close paraphrasing and to meet the flow of the sentence: A person who meets the above qualifications could still not be eligible [...] if they have been disqualified from holding any "office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States" [...] following either impeachment and conviction under Article I, Section 3, Clause 7, or [...]. Are you claiming that a president disqualified under the first article (an idea so prevalent during the last impeachment) would somehow not be disqualified? - I mean, the bit about some debate is already there. Your insertion into Article One of the United States Constitution, however, is problematic, because it tells in Wikipedia's voice that the President is not an "office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States"; while the sources we found say that this is debatable, not an absolute fact. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:02, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

I've removed the WP:SYNTH from the other article and restored to the version from before you inserted this questionable material. Please be aware that Wikipedia isn't a place to publish your own conclusions on something. And then, since it's a free for all, let me rebut your argument with a simple quote form the constitution which explicitly says: "The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows:". QED. Anyway, that is a debate for another talk page. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:07, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Further discussion about that at Talk:Article_One_of_the_United_States_Constitution#Section_3,_Clause_7_(Impeachment), to stay on topic. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:20, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

"Wikipedia isn't a place to publish your own conclusions on something." - You clearly have not read the WP:RS citations I used.

"Are you claiming that a president disqualified under the first article (an idea so prevalent during the last impeachment) would somehow not be disqualified?" I make no claims at all, I only improved the sources to WP:RS standards. And I have tried incredibly hard to break through this pervasive belief that "an idea so prevalent" actually means anything at all. The concept of WP:MAINSTREAM has nothing at all to do with prevalence in the media. The standard, if you follow the link, is clearly what leading experts would agree to. This specifically excludes Op/Ed statements, when reliable sources, such as renowned Constitutional law expert, Senator Matthew H. Carpenter have clearly and precisely defined what the disqualification clause is for. Disqualification has the "sole purpose" of preventing the President from re-appointing impeached officers after removal, and nothing more. This has been repeated in the House of Representatives during the last impeachment, in fact, who also declared that denying any citizen ballot access to the Presidency is a violation of both the 1st and 12th Amendments (not my words). I genuinely believe you don't even open the source citations, and that is frustrating and a waste of everyone's time.

Now you literally went back to an article which cited the Precedents of the U.S. House of Representatives, and replaced it with a version which has no citation at all. Please? What is this war you are waging to turn WP into a tabloid? The citation was rock solid, secondary sourced, and perfectly quoted. It said in the proper "Wikipedia voice" what the proper authorities - Congress - agree to. Now it has no citation at all, and I wager you intend to throw that tripe from The Atlantic all over WP to pretend this is some Op/Ed churnalism site.
But since we are in discussion, and before I head to a noticeboard, tell me why this source is somehow not "Wikipedia voice" material. The Atlantic, you argue is Secondary source. OK, I will accept for the sake of argument, that he is a lawyer and somewhat informed, even though he is not publishing to journalism standards when he writes this piece.

• What he could have easily said, was "elected as President", or "re-elected" (because Trump was President.) But he generically said, "elected." That can mean Congress, so it fails the "Directly support" requirement. Yes, it is true that if Trump committed rebellion, he would be ineligible to become a Senator under 14th. Bernstein is exactly correct when he said, "In addition to the list of people who are ineligible for reasons of mere demographic chance, the Constitution adds a category of people who cannot be elected as a result of their misdeeds." You can argue that Bernstein is implying the Presidency, and I agree that he is. But Wikipedia is not a place for implied meanings. That is WP:OR. Wikipedia demands "Directly supporting" citations. The exact word or words meaning "Presidency" must be said since congress is also "elected." This specific quote fails WP:MAINSTREAM
• "Unless a dispute is verifiably acknowledged to exist in high-quality sources, it does not belong in Wikipedia" I have been forced to accept this "disputed" status using off-hand references in news articles, but the high-quality sources inside Congress and written inside their Precedents do not agree that there is any debate. Not one Senator or government official has ever interviewed with any news outlet and said, "The President is an officer under the United States" or a "Civil officer." Never once, and they never will. The debate is in academia, as the Professor at Michigan reported in the Reuters article.
• All that aside, did Bernstein actually support this claim that because a person is impeached and disqualified, then they are not eligible to hold the office of the President? Even in a back-hand way? No. He could have easily said that, but he did not say that. Wikipedia requires him to say that with no ambiguity, and no WP:SYNTH. Here is his exact quote (and notice he very clearly and carefully avoids calling the President a "civil officer", which would have been a lie). His quote, with the FACTS inserted; This category [of people who cannot be elected (to Congress under the 14th Amdt.) as a result of their misdeeds(of insurrection)] includes presidents (along with vice presidents and federal “civil officers”) who are impeached, convicted by two-thirds of the Senate, and disqualified for serious misconduct committed while they were in office. I realize you want this to say something different, and you may believe he just chose his words poorly, but he is a very accomplished writer. He could have easily said, "the Constitution adds a category of people who cannot be elected [be/become/be elected as President] as a result of their misdeeds." Now, if he changed one or two words, this would "Directly support" your claim. But he used the generic "elected" word. Bernstein literally doesn't even mention that there is any debate. He very clearly declared that the President is not a civil officer in the way he worded this. If he was an officer, Bernstein would have written this: This category includes presidents (along with vice presidents and [other] federal “civil officers”), or he could simply say "civil officers" like the President and Vice President. But he chose to make three very distinct categories of "A", "B", and "C", which can not be confused. That is hard to swallow for some people. They want to believe these Op/Eds are honest. In the end it doesn't matter what Bernstein believes, he did not "Directly support" the statement you want included, nor did he even mention anything about a debate. This fails the Wikipedia standards of quality and is OR used in this article without WP:ATTRIBUTION. I personally believe he knows the truth, our right to ballot access is guaranteed in the 1st Amendment. @RandomCanadian:

--Frobozz1 (talk) 05:38, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

You are engaging in criticism of a secondary source (by complaining that what Bernstein is saying is inaccurate), based on what is seemingly your own conclusions and interpretations of primary sources. That is WP:SYNTH, as I said. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs)

05:58, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
Bernstein never said anything that can fit into an article about "eligibility" to hold the Presidency. It has no place in this article and is without question a WP:PRIMARY opinion, in no way WP:MAINSTREAM.

--Frobozz1 (talk) 15:53, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

If the only change to solve all of that was to replace "eligible" with "qualified", I don't see why it was worth making up such a fuss about it - we're Wikipedia, not an actual text of law, so minor issues of wording do not have too much bearing here. You seem to be conflating "office" with "civil officer". I am not sure that those two terms are necessarily equivalent, unlike what you claim. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:55, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Article is only citizenship based requirements

I added California's legislation to add the release of tax returns as an eligibility criteria. The addition was promptly reverted because this legislation is different from all the other legislation in the article, as all the other legislation discuss eligibility based on citizenship.

If we are going to limit this article only to legislation based on citizenship requirements, then the article title ought to reflect that. Otherwise the California legislation belongs in the article. Where is Matt? (talk) 23:35, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

This article was started to document federal and state legislation growing out of conspiracy theories related to Barack Obama's presidential eligibility under the U.S. Constitution. None of those initiatives gained traction to become law. The California legislation seems to fall under ballot eligibility not Constitutional eligibility for holding the office of POTUS. Drdpw (talk) 12:52, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

The current title of the article says nothing about the eligibility needing to relate to constitutional requirements. Where is Matt? (talk) 15:05, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

Plucking a sentence from Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories#Legislation and litigation, this article is about "legislation aimed at requiring future presidential candidates to release copies of their birth certificates". I think a move to something like "United States presidential candidate birth certificate legislation" would capture the scope of this article and clear up ambiguity about content. Drdpw (talk) 15:48, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

How about "Legislation in the United States on birth certificate requirements for presidential candidates"? It is a little longer than your proposal due to the extra words "in", "on", "the", "for", and "requirements" but I think it's a preferable choice because

1. it puts the words "Legislation in the United States" at the beginning, as opposed to having the word "legislation" at the end. The word "legislation" should be as close to the beginning as possible since the article is about legislation
2. the legislation is not about the birth certificates, but the requirement for candidate to have a birth certificate

Where is Matt? (talk) 18:24, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 11 October 2023

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved (non-admin closure). Jenks24 (talk) 11:01, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

---

United States presidential eligibility legislation → Legislation in the United States on birth certificate requirements for presidential candidates – Seems that this article was broken off from the article about Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories. At the time, the only eligibility legislation was about birth certificates. In 2019, California passed legislation adding public release of tax returns to the criteria for eligibility. Although struck down by the courts, it would be perfectly legitimate to add to the article California's legislation on tax returns, unless the article name is changed. The proposed move is therefore to keep the article in line with the original article from which it was split. Where is Matt? (talk) 14:07, 11 October 2023 (UTC) — Relisting. Jenks24 (talk) 09:14, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

• Add "proposed" to the title (regardless of the other aspect): If I understand correctly, none of the described proposed measures are current law. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 18:35, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Correct, none of the birth certificate proposals became law. It is a non-issue now. Drdpw (talk) 19:09, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Concur with the change, included adding "Proposed." Weazie (talk) 19:12, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

• I don't think the word "Proposed" is necessary. Legislation does not mean that it passed into law. Just means it was introduced (same as "proposed"). Where is Matt? (talk) 00:09, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

• The ordinary meaning of "legislation" is law or the writing of law. The word certainly doesn't say something did not become law. We should choose a title that makes it clear, without needing to read the whole article, that none of these various actions discussed at length in the article led to any current active law. Putting "proposed" or "attempted" in the title would help with that. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 09:25, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

Oppose per WP:CONCISE. The proposed title is too long, and I don't see why we should limit this article to just proposed birth certificate requirements. Also support adding "proposed", unless any form of legislation is actually passed. estar8806 (talk) ★ 19:20, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

• Comment The scope of this article is presidential eligibility legislation. The specific issue at the time was natural-born citizenship. That and age, must be at least 35, along with a 14-year U.S. residency requirement are the only presidential eligibility requirements. The California measure was about restricting ballot access, not about ensuring that only constitutionally eligible persons appeared on the ballot. Drdpw (talk) 01:07, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

• I don't see the difference between "presidential eligibility requirements" and "[eligibility for] ballot access". All the legislation in the article is about ballot access. Where is Matt? (talk) 01:52, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

• I suppose someone could theoretically win the national popular vote (or especially the electoral college vote) without having their name printed on the ballots in some particular state. Most of what is described in the article are actions at the state level, and a state obviously cannot make a law that dictates who is eligible to hold a federal office, although the state may be able to manipulate the balloting process within its own state. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 09:25, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
• Where is Matt? makes a good point that, whether asking for a birth certificate or tax records, they are both forms controlling ballot access. (But birth certificates tend to prove eligibility, while tax records do not.) Perhaps a new section could include the failed tax-records law, with a title something like "Other Limits to Ballot Access"? Weazie (talk) 04:13, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

• This Rfc move request is about changing the article title not about changing the scope of the article. Given the OP's comments, perhaps they should have considered a an Rfc move request to change the title to something along the lines of "United States presidential ballot access legislation". Drdpw (talk) 13:04, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

  This is not an RfC. Requests for comment ("RfCs") have different rules, policies and procedures. This is a Requested move (RM). estar8806 (talk) ★ 14:12, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

• It may be worth mentioning that the section entitled 2009 proposed federal legislation is not about ballot access. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 15:13, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose:Per WP:CONCISE and Estar above. - 🔥𝑰𝒍𝒍𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝑭𝒍𝒂𝒎𝒆 (𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌)🔥 19:30, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose per above. The current title is fine, and can include other things as appropriate.  — Amakuru (talk) 00:46, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

RfC about California law on presidential candidates

Should the article include California Senate Bill 27 (2019) regarding ballot access for presidential candidates? See Section 4 of this version of the article for context on a proposed inclusion, which would replace the "See also" section. Where is Matt? (talk) 20:21, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

• I added a 'See also' link to that article on 13-11-2023, along with a description. Drdpw (talk) 20:55, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

I see the RfC has been modified. There is no reason to replace the see also link (added to the article a day prior to the RfC post), which accomplishes the original intent of the RfC. Drdpw (talk) 21:49, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

I don’t see why not 2007GabrielT (talk) 23:17, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

• Include in article. Summoned by bot. Since the title of the article refers to any eligibility legislation, and given that it is written to give good context for any such laws, it makes sense to include all such laws, as proposed in [1]. Given the title, it doesn't make sense to include a bunch of birther laws that didn't pass, but exclude the tax returns law that did. If not, then the article should probably be renamed to something specific to defeated brither laws. 21:02, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Ha! I just see that such a move was proposed and failed. Given the consensus to keep the title, it seems clear that we should now add the other things that fit under the title. 21:05, 22 November 2023 (UTC)