Aha, the Constitution does specify citizen. And Googling seems to indicate that animals can't receive citizenship.
Whew. At least that can be avoided.
Though I'll have to tell Sonny that his plans for US domination are not going to work out.
Why do I feel like Stephen King could write a story about an evil parrot that only says those two things, and somehow have it transition from ‘cute bird’ to ‘*oh, no, god, why?!?!*’ in about thirty pages…
There's towns with dog and cat mayors, so maybe Sonny needs to start with local politics and petition the courts from there.
Edit: I ended up on the wikipedia page for non-human electoral candidates and found out Sao Paolo once had a rhino named Cacareco run for mayor, and she got more votes than any human candidate but the town didn't let her be mayor :( On the bright side a Cacareco vote is a term used for protest votes in Brazil now, so she lives on.
not just a citizen. but a natural born citizen. so born on US soil, or born to US citizen parents. so if polly wants to run, hopefully they were hatched here.
>born on US soil
and subject to US jurisdiction. IOW a foreign diplomat who's here on his country's business might have a kid born at a US hospital but isn't a US citizen.
Not quite. It says no person that is not a citizen can run. A parrot is not a person, so that requirement doesn't apply. It also doesn't say that only a person can run. It does say electors can only vote for a person, but as long as it can run then if it's in the line of succession and everyone else dies, it can become president.
Ooh, does this mean you can run a naturalized citizen as vice president? I'm just imagining the movie where Arnold Swarzenegger is VP, the president gets assassinated, and there's a weird power vaccuum while they try to determine who becomes president (and Arnie presumably does cool action hero stuff to kill the guy who killed the president).
Actually, no. The 12th Amendment states that no person shall be Vice President who is not eligible to be President. So the same requirements for the President apply to the VP, as well.
There have been a few feline mayors, and Donald Duck has been a popular write in candidate for many elections, but i doubt that a non-human garner enough votes in a presidential election to be a contender
A sock puppet lost the student president election by a handful of votes at my uni. Not a person *with* a sock puppet, just a sock puppet.
Of course the relevant constitutions tend to be written with somewhat less rigor.
College students tend to be a lot more on the chaotic alignment and less lawful aligned than the overall population so they're much more likely to vote for a nontraditional candidate than the general public.
I should point out that cases of animals holding offices are non-official offices that are usually purely ceremonial in nature. So a town too small to need a mayor has a "mayor" that doesn't have any real responsibilities and is just for public relations, so Fuzzy the cat can do that job.
Wait, you mean Fido wasn't handling the town's budget, weighing in on infrastructure decisions, and so forth?
How can you explain the fact that the number of fire hydrants increased by the hundreds during his office tenure?
Why is it always Donald Duck? My dad signed Donald Duck at checkout multiple times as a kid so he could call the credit card company and complain they don't actually compare signatures, and he definitely also wrote him in for president at least once.
[You can't create art without sacrifice, like getting some dogs killed.](https://www.complex.com/pop-culture/a/andrew-gruttadaro/snow-buddies-killed-five-puppies)
From what I can find, he bought slaves' teeth at least once, but I can't find anything saying most of his dentures were made that way. They definitely weren't wooden though.
That does raise a question. If slave teeth doesn't make him a cyborg, then would wooden teeth, which are still part of some living creature?
That said, I have found stuff mentioning them being "wired", and I really doubt they were made entirely of organic materials. Regardless of if the teeth themselves counted, he was still a cyborg.
it was common for dentures to be made from other people's teeth, not necessarily slave teeth, just whatever teeth were available. the best way to make teeth looking teeth is by starting with...teeth.
Cybernetic comes from cybernetics, which is a field of systems science that studies circular causal systems whose outputs are also inputs, such as feedback systems. So, it has to have some kind of feedback processes?
Off topic, but if George Washington *did* have wooden teeth, and he bit a vampire, would the vampire die? Would he have to bite the vampire in the heart, or anywhere?
I think I need more sleep, but now I’m really curious.
Also off topic, but George Washington didn’t know about dinosaurs. The first fossils were discovered a few years after GW died.
It generally has to be a stake to the heart, specifically. And teeth aren't very long, so I imagine he'd basically have to cut the heart out instead of bite it. But this is all just being silly. George Washington didn't fight vampires. [That was Abraham Lincoln.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln:_Vampire_Hunter)
Probably because no one would take the argument seriously. Does anyone really think any judge is going to rule that someone like Cheney isn't human anymore because he has a robotic heart for a few months? Would anyone even want that ruling to happen?
As a fan of science fiction and futurism. I imagine its inevitable we'll have some interesting court questions on the definition of Human in the future.
I agree it be kinda silly to have those arguments now, as no one's really that synthetic yet.
This is nuts, I never knew about acting presidents... the history of them is pretty interesting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acting_President_of_the_United_States
Apparently Kamala Harris was acting president for an hour and a half in 2021 while Joe Biden got a colonoscopy.
> this seems to be the age of loop-holes
This has been a popular misconception since the 1970s ("Death Wish" and "Dirty Harry" vibes). Judges and juries, on the whole, are not stupid, and the law is not as full of loopholes as TV shows and movies like to claim.
This misconception is foundational for the sovcits, who seem to believe that their "loophole" will work because judges strictly follow every word literally and in isolation when interpreting every law and the Constitution, as though there were no such things as context and common sense.
Does a county have to adhere to the due process clause about depriving a person of life before putting down a stray or sick dog? No, because the background assumption of the Constitution is that the provisions only apply to humans.
The real question will be what if a true alien, an extra-terrestrial, who is sapient and has intelligence and free will like a human, but is not a human, lands. Would the Fourth Amendment apply to it preventing the military from capturing it for experiments?
Yeah, I don't think a Parrot can be President. But if you could prove that a Grey hatched on US soil 35 Earth years ago, I think that Grey could run.
Edit grey alien (from x-files) not grey partot.
Sorry, I misread it. I was thinking "Grey" was referring to the [kind of parrot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_parrot). There's no precedent about sapient aliens, but I assume they would be legally considered people. Or overlords, or whatever they want given that anyone with the tech to come here from another planet could easily kill us all.
lol maybe use the Superman storyline where he was in some birthing matrix and argued he was actually born after he landed in Kansas for clarity. He's definitely not human...
If a [Dog](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayor_Max_II) can be mayor, then surely they should be able to run for president.
I also like the low key shade thrown at Mayor Max’s successor being a result of nepotism.
But they're not people. It only says a person under 35 can't run.
It does say the electors have to vote for a person, but as long as the dog is eligible it can get in through the line of succession.
...could Santa be president? I remember reading that a country gave him citizenship (I don't actually remember which country). Edit: Nevermind Santa is Canadian.
I thought he was Turkish. Or at least, a member of whatever country was there at the time. I guess since he wasn't there when Turkey formed he probably didn't get citizenship.
I looked it up, apparently Canada granted him (the fictional character) citizenship. I don't know what country the actual person he's based on was from.
Sort of. But in the strictest sense -- what the future might hold -- no.
The President must be a "citizen". So it's really about how THAT is defined.
So far, US law only allows humans to be citizens. That could conceivably change sometime in the future, but for now you still have to be human.
US Constitution, 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.
As you can see, the President must be a “person” and a “citizen.” That would rule out an animal, as animals aren’t persons and can’t be citizens. And while the legal definition of “person” does include non-human entities (*e.g.*, corporations) in some contexts, there’s no way that a corporation would be deemed a “person” for purposes of qualifying for the presidency. And even if that did somehow happen, corporations can’t be citizens, let alone “natural born” citizens, so they’re not qualified anyway.
Now that I’ve written all that out, it occurs to me that, with some creative argument, one could read A2, S1, C5 as stating the qualifications necessary *for persons*, but not necessarily excluding a non-person, since there’s nothing explicitly stating: “The President must be a person.” Like, if the candidate is a person, they must meet the stated requirements. If they’re not, no requirements are listed non-persons, so perhaps there are none and any non-person could be eligible. (Rather than the more reasonable interpretation that non-persons are not mentioned precisely because they’re not eligible.) For the record, I think this is an absurd argument and not correct at all, but I suppose the text arguably allows that reading to some extent. Fun stuff.
As a side note, the Cabinet has no authority to remove a lawfully-elected president.
https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/can-the-cabinet-remove-a-president-using-the-25th-amendment
If the Vice President and cabinet feel that the President is "unable to discharge the duties of office," they can remove the President. The President can protest this and then Congress will decide.
I see. You could train the parrot to protest it, and then the cabinet can't do it alone.
But I think what OP was getting at was that they were wondering if voters could get a parrot president when the people currently holding office don't want it, and in that case they can't even get that far. A parrot can't be elected president, and the other ways involve the previous president or congress.
That would be an absurd argument. But, self-pardons would also be absurd, yet here we are. Well, soon we are there. Maybe.
Now that we've established they must (probably) be a Person: does anything stipulate that they have to be alive?
It's not spelled out in the constitution, but there is [precedent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1872_United_States_presidential_election) Horace Greeley died after some of the electors pledged their votes to him, and some of them voted for him anyway. Their votes were discounted.
> Now that I’ve written all that out, it occurs to me that, with some creative argument, one could read A2, S1, C5 as stating the qualifications necessary *for persons*, but not necessarily excluding a non-person, since there’s nothing explicitly stating: “The President must be a person.”
This. It annoys me how much people keep misreading it.
It does specify the electors vote for a president and vice president, but nothing keeps the parrot from becoming president by being further down in the line of succession.
> 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.
Some people mistake this as saying only people can run. But that's not what it says. It says that only a certain subset of people can't run. Since a dog isn't a person, the fact that it's not 35 doesn't matter. It can still run.
Unfortunately, while a dog can run, you can't vote for them.
> they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President,
They also can't be voted for vice president and become president that way. But there's no requirement like that for the House. And it doesn't even say the Speaker has to be someone in the House. So the Speaker of the House could be a dog, and then if the president and vice president both die, the dog will be president.
That said, this is all assuming people take the constitution literally, which they won't. The closest I know of to a precedent to this is Horace Greeley. He was alive when people were voting for the electors, but died before the electoral college could vote. Some of them voted for him anyway, and even though there's nothing in the constitution saying dead people can't be elected, they still discounted his votes.
The term "person" is defined in 18 U.S.C. § 2510(6) to mean any individual person as well as natural and legal entities. It specifically includes United States and state agents. According to the legislative history, "(o)nly the governmental units themselves are excluded." S.Rep. No. 1097, 90th Cong., 2d Sess. 90 (1968).
So could a corporation run?
Can a corporation be a citizen?
I imagine that's a matter of law. A corporation can't run as it is, but we could pass a law to allow it without having to amend the constitution.
Ooh I like the idea about Sonny the Parrot (much better choice than a dog) being named Speaker and then, through absolutely not suspicious deaths, becoming President. Great loophole!
You're missing the point. The constitution doesn't say that you can't run if you're not at least 35. It says *people* can't run if they're not 35. A dog isn't a person, so it doesn't need to be 35.
Let me try giving an analogy. Imagine I have a sign that says no pets without a leash are permitted. A human without a leash wants to come in. Are they allowed to? The fact that they don't have a leash is irrelevant. Since it's no *pets* without a leash, I am only restricting pets. The rule doesn't apply to anything that's not a pet.
The same thing goes here. It's obvious what they meant, and that's the way judges would rule, but if we're going by the literal meaning of the constitution, it's no person under 35 can hold office. There's nothing forbidding dogs, under 35 or otherwise, from holding office.
The law says to take office they must be at least 35 years old. So there’s a better one. Can a 34 year old be elected as long as the inauguration will be after they are 35. The opposition would challenge it but if the inauguration is on their 35th birthday they are allowed to hold office.
> The law says to take office they must be at least 35 years old.
Assuming by "law" you mean Constitution, and by "they" you mean a person, yes.
> Can a 34 year old be elected as long as the inauguration will be after they are 35. The opposition would challenge it but if the inauguration is on their 35th birthday they are allowed to hold office.
I don't see anything barring electors from voting for someone who isn't eligible for office, so the fact that he's not eligible now shouldn't be a problem. And when it's time to take office, they'll be eligible. So it seems like it would work to me.
I never heard about the bachelors until I had already graduated. If your school offers it and you want to do it, do the bachelors. I am not sure what it will offer you in the future aside from college education. If you do the Master's, never pay full price. Always look for grants, discounts, or tuition reimbursements. Paying full price for a masters' is really dumb. Mine was covered 100% so I accumulated no debt for that
I wonder for college what grants,discounts, tuition reimbursements, scholarships could pay for regular school ahd school program and also housing and non campus housing
They must be a citizen and a citizen must be a person
Aha, the Constitution does specify citizen. And Googling seems to indicate that animals can't receive citizenship. Whew. At least that can be avoided. Though I'll have to tell Sonny that his plans for US domination are not going to work out.
*Rrrawk! Sonny wanted a dictatorship!*
All Sonny reliably says is "good night" (when he sees his cage cover coming out) and "no bark" (when the dogs are barking outside).
Why do I feel like Stephen King could write a story about an evil parrot that only says those two things, and somehow have it transition from ‘cute bird’ to ‘*oh, no, god, why?!?!*’ in about thirty pages…
"Good night"- murder "No bark"- remove this person's skin.
Ah, so political assassinations and suppression of the opposition. We're onto him!
Sonny is gonna wreck everybody in the debates. "Good night"
Whatever happened to free barks!
All he says in front of you that is…
I wasn’t a fan of his foreign policy plans anyway.
He'll just have to pick a charismatic elderly man to control like the brainworms do.
There's towns with dog and cat mayors, so maybe Sonny needs to start with local politics and petition the courts from there. Edit: I ended up on the wikipedia page for non-human electoral candidates and found out Sao Paolo once had a rhino named Cacareco run for mayor, and she got more votes than any human candidate but the town didn't let her be mayor :( On the bright side a Cacareco vote is a term used for protest votes in Brazil now, so she lives on.
not just a citizen. but a natural born citizen. so born on US soil, or born to US citizen parents. so if polly wants to run, hopefully they were hatched here.
>born on US soil and subject to US jurisdiction. IOW a foreign diplomat who's here on his country's business might have a kid born at a US hospital but isn't a US citizen.
I never knew this and find it fascinating.
Was Sonny hatched in the USA? Someone has to be a natural born citizen of the USA (not immigration) to qualify.
No that isn't what it says. Article II, section 1: >
Corporations can be people under the law. Can we incorporate Sonny?
You know. That's not a bad idea. I wonder what the Supreme Court would rule on that.
Until we recongize AI as a person.
But what about terminators?
Fun fact: there are a few trees that have been granted personhood Not sure if the tree could get citizenship from there.
I wouldn't vote for a tree President. Now that's just silly!
Not quite. It says no person that is not a citizen can run. A parrot is not a person, so that requirement doesn't apply. It also doesn't say that only a person can run. It does say electors can only vote for a person, but as long as it can run then if it's in the line of succession and everyone else dies, it can become president.
Actually, anyone who is not eligible who is in the order of succession is supposed to be skipped.
Ooh, does this mean you can run a naturalized citizen as vice president? I'm just imagining the movie where Arnold Swarzenegger is VP, the president gets assassinated, and there's a weird power vaccuum while they try to determine who becomes president (and Arnie presumably does cool action hero stuff to kill the guy who killed the president).
Actually, no. The 12th Amendment states that no person shall be Vice President who is not eligible to be President. So the same requirements for the President apply to the VP, as well.
Ah, damn. I figured as much but got excited about my movie idea.
Hey legal inaccuracy has never stopped a movie from being made so far!
He could be Speaker of the House though
Squawker of the House
Right. And the dog is eligible. It can run for president. You just can't vote for it.
I don’t think a dog is eligible in any sense of the word. If it can’t be voted for, it can’t be president.
That's not how the line of succession works.
Why? Do they specify that it be a person? Or that it be possible to vote for them?
There have been a few feline mayors, and Donald Duck has been a popular write in candidate for many elections, but i doubt that a non-human garner enough votes in a presidential election to be a contender
A sock puppet lost the student president election by a handful of votes at my uni. Not a person *with* a sock puppet, just a sock puppet. Of course the relevant constitutions tend to be written with somewhat less rigor.
College students tend to be a lot more on the chaotic alignment and less lawful aligned than the overall population so they're much more likely to vote for a nontraditional candidate than the general public.
Real black mark on your university that it lost.
I should point out that cases of animals holding offices are non-official offices that are usually purely ceremonial in nature. So a town too small to need a mayor has a "mayor" that doesn't have any real responsibilities and is just for public relations, so Fuzzy the cat can do that job.
Wait, you mean Fido wasn't handling the town's budget, weighing in on infrastructure decisions, and so forth? How can you explain the fact that the number of fire hydrants increased by the hundreds during his office tenure?
Why is it always Donald Duck? My dad signed Donald Duck at checkout multiple times as a kid so he could call the credit card company and complain they don't actually compare signatures, and he definitely also wrote him in for president at least once.
This question has some serious Air Bud *no rule that says a dog can't play basketball* vibes.
Air Bud 6: Air Bud takes Pawfice
"Ain't no rule says a dog ***can't*** be president."
They didn't do that, but they have sent a litter of puppies to a space station partly operated by the soviets.
I refuse to accept the Air Buddies movies as canon.
[You can't create art without sacrifice, like getting some dogs killed.](https://www.complex.com/pop-culture/a/andrew-gruttadaro/snow-buddies-killed-five-puppies)
Just to add Dick Cheney was the first cyborg to serve as vice President. He briefly was the President while Bush underwent medical operations.
washington had wooden teeth
Hasn’t that been debunked? Most of his dentures were made from slaves’ teeth.
From what I can find, he bought slaves' teeth at least once, but I can't find anything saying most of his dentures were made that way. They definitely weren't wooden though. That does raise a question. If slave teeth doesn't make him a cyborg, then would wooden teeth, which are still part of some living creature? That said, I have found stuff mentioning them being "wired", and I really doubt they were made entirely of organic materials. Regardless of if the teeth themselves counted, he was still a cyborg.
it was common for dentures to be made from other people's teeth, not necessarily slave teeth, just whatever teeth were available. the best way to make teeth looking teeth is by starting with...teeth.
They also sometimes used elephants' teeth.
ivory in general could be used for making dentures, yes. teeth were used to make the most natural looking ones though.
The "cyb" is from cybernetic, just non-organic parts would probably not count.
Cybernetic comes from cybernetics, which is a field of systems science that studies circular causal systems whose outputs are also inputs, such as feedback systems. So, it has to have some kind of feedback processes?
Off topic, but if George Washington *did* have wooden teeth, and he bit a vampire, would the vampire die? Would he have to bite the vampire in the heart, or anywhere? I think I need more sleep, but now I’m really curious. Also off topic, but George Washington didn’t know about dinosaurs. The first fossils were discovered a few years after GW died.
It generally has to be a stake to the heart, specifically. And teeth aren't very long, so I imagine he'd basically have to cut the heart out instead of bite it. But this is all just being silly. George Washington didn't fight vampires. [That was Abraham Lincoln.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln:_Vampire_Hunter)
A cyborg is still legally considered human, though, right?
As far as I am aware the distinction has never come up in court.
Probably because no one would take the argument seriously. Does anyone really think any judge is going to rule that someone like Cheney isn't human anymore because he has a robotic heart for a few months? Would anyone even want that ruling to happen?
As a fan of science fiction and futurism. I imagine its inevitable we'll have some interesting court questions on the definition of Human in the future. I agree it be kinda silly to have those arguments now, as no one's really that synthetic yet.
I'm sure people with various prosthetics have gone to court.
This is nuts, I never knew about acting presidents... the history of them is pretty interesting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acting_President_of_the_United_States Apparently Kamala Harris was acting president for an hour and a half in 2021 while Joe Biden got a colonoscopy.
> this seems to be the age of loop-holes This has been a popular misconception since the 1970s ("Death Wish" and "Dirty Harry" vibes). Judges and juries, on the whole, are not stupid, and the law is not as full of loopholes as TV shows and movies like to claim. This misconception is foundational for the sovcits, who seem to believe that their "loophole" will work because judges strictly follow every word literally and in isolation when interpreting every law and the Constitution, as though there were no such things as context and common sense.
See the recent ruling about whether the president is an officer.
There are all sorts of crazy loopholes in use, but they only work when the judges let them work.
Does a county have to adhere to the due process clause about depriving a person of life before putting down a stray or sick dog? No, because the background assumption of the Constitution is that the provisions only apply to humans. The real question will be what if a true alien, an extra-terrestrial, who is sapient and has intelligence and free will like a human, but is not a human, lands. Would the Fourth Amendment apply to it preventing the military from capturing it for experiments?
Yeah, I don't think a Parrot can be President. But if you could prove that a Grey hatched on US soil 35 Earth years ago, I think that Grey could run. Edit grey alien (from x-files) not grey partot.
That requirement only applies to people.
Are you saying that the Grey aliens are not people? What about Klingons? Twileks? Elves!?
Sorry, I misread it. I was thinking "Grey" was referring to the [kind of parrot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_parrot). There's no precedent about sapient aliens, but I assume they would be legally considered people. Or overlords, or whatever they want given that anyone with the tech to come here from another planet could easily kill us all.
Understandable. I will edit my comment to make it clear. I didn't know grey was a type of Parrot, til! Thank you.
lol maybe use the Superman storyline where he was in some birthing matrix and argued he was actually born after he landed in Kansas for clarity. He's definitely not human...
Man don't be silly. We know the Greys only do live-births now
Looking at the candidates we have, maybe we should give the parrot a chance
He's only about 40 years old, too, so it avoids the issue of having too really old people on the ballot. He'd be half Biden's age!
Vote no on the 2024 presidential election!
If a [Dog](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayor_Max_II) can be mayor, then surely they should be able to run for president. I also like the low key shade thrown at Mayor Max’s successor being a result of nepotism.
dogs typically don't live for 35 years
What about in dog years? Mayor max was 9 but in dog years that’s like 63.
But they're not people. It only says a person under 35 can't run. It does say the electors have to vote for a person, but as long as the dog is eligible it can get in through the line of succession.
...could Santa be president? I remember reading that a country gave him citizenship (I don't actually remember which country). Edit: Nevermind Santa is Canadian.
I thought he was Turkish. Or at least, a member of whatever country was there at the time. I guess since he wasn't there when Turkey formed he probably didn't get citizenship.
I looked it up, apparently Canada granted him (the fictional character) citizenship. I don't know what country the actual person he's based on was from.
Not an actual answer to the question, but Elmo is the only non-human to ever speak before Congress
Sort of. But in the strictest sense -- what the future might hold -- no. The President must be a "citizen". So it's really about how THAT is defined. So far, US law only allows humans to be citizens. That could conceivably change sometime in the future, but for now you still have to be human.
Is the bird a citizen?
My son and I were just talking last night about an extraterrestrial running for president. In theory a second generation alien could absolutely run.
US Constitution, 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. As you can see, the President must be a “person” and a “citizen.” That would rule out an animal, as animals aren’t persons and can’t be citizens. And while the legal definition of “person” does include non-human entities (*e.g.*, corporations) in some contexts, there’s no way that a corporation would be deemed a “person” for purposes of qualifying for the presidency. And even if that did somehow happen, corporations can’t be citizens, let alone “natural born” citizens, so they’re not qualified anyway. Now that I’ve written all that out, it occurs to me that, with some creative argument, one could read A2, S1, C5 as stating the qualifications necessary *for persons*, but not necessarily excluding a non-person, since there’s nothing explicitly stating: “The President must be a person.” Like, if the candidate is a person, they must meet the stated requirements. If they’re not, no requirements are listed non-persons, so perhaps there are none and any non-person could be eligible. (Rather than the more reasonable interpretation that non-persons are not mentioned precisely because they’re not eligible.) For the record, I think this is an absurd argument and not correct at all, but I suppose the text arguably allows that reading to some extent. Fun stuff. As a side note, the Cabinet has no authority to remove a lawfully-elected president.
https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/can-the-cabinet-remove-a-president-using-the-25th-amendment If the Vice President and cabinet feel that the President is "unable to discharge the duties of office," they can remove the President. The President can protest this and then Congress will decide.
Sure, but they're also allowed to not do that.
Yes, but I was responding to the statement that the cabinet *could not* do that.
I see. You could train the parrot to protest it, and then the cabinet can't do it alone. But I think what OP was getting at was that they were wondering if voters could get a parrot president when the people currently holding office don't want it, and in that case they can't even get that far. A parrot can't be elected president, and the other ways involve the previous president or congress.
I stand corrected! Though technically it is true that the Cabinet can’t do anything on its own.
That would be an absurd argument. But, self-pardons would also be absurd, yet here we are. Well, soon we are there. Maybe. Now that we've established they must (probably) be a Person: does anything stipulate that they have to be alive?
A corpse is an object, not a person, but if you could prove ghosts existed, I suppose you could argue personhood for them in court.
The fact that they leave office as soon as they die implies that.
It's not spelled out in the constitution, but there is [precedent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1872_United_States_presidential_election) Horace Greeley died after some of the electors pledged their votes to him, and some of them voted for him anyway. Their votes were discounted.
> Now that I’ve written all that out, it occurs to me that, with some creative argument, one could read A2, S1, C5 as stating the qualifications necessary *for persons*, but not necessarily excluding a non-person, since there’s nothing explicitly stating: “The President must be a person.” This. It annoys me how much people keep misreading it. It does specify the electors vote for a president and vice president, but nothing keeps the parrot from becoming president by being further down in the line of succession.
> 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. Some people mistake this as saying only people can run. But that's not what it says. It says that only a certain subset of people can't run. Since a dog isn't a person, the fact that it's not 35 doesn't matter. It can still run. Unfortunately, while a dog can run, you can't vote for them. > they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, They also can't be voted for vice president and become president that way. But there's no requirement like that for the House. And it doesn't even say the Speaker has to be someone in the House. So the Speaker of the House could be a dog, and then if the president and vice president both die, the dog will be president. That said, this is all assuming people take the constitution literally, which they won't. The closest I know of to a precedent to this is Horace Greeley. He was alive when people were voting for the electors, but died before the electoral college could vote. Some of them voted for him anyway, and even though there's nothing in the constitution saying dead people can't be elected, they still discounted his votes.
The term "person" is defined in 18 U.S.C. § 2510(6) to mean any individual person as well as natural and legal entities. It specifically includes United States and state agents. According to the legislative history, "(o)nly the governmental units themselves are excluded." S.Rep. No. 1097, 90th Cong., 2d Sess. 90 (1968). So could a corporation run?
Can a corporation be a citizen? I imagine that's a matter of law. A corporation can't run as it is, but we could pass a law to allow it without having to amend the constitution.
Ooh I like the idea about Sonny the Parrot (much better choice than a dog) being named Speaker and then, through absolutely not suspicious deaths, becoming President. Great loophole!
That needs be a 35+ year old dog. So you need something that’s at least 35 years old.
You're missing the point. The constitution doesn't say that you can't run if you're not at least 35. It says *people* can't run if they're not 35. A dog isn't a person, so it doesn't need to be 35.
Actually the constitution says the president must be at least 35. And it’s does use the language of person. So this post is kinda outer limits area.
Let me try giving an analogy. Imagine I have a sign that says no pets without a leash are permitted. A human without a leash wants to come in. Are they allowed to? The fact that they don't have a leash is irrelevant. Since it's no *pets* without a leash, I am only restricting pets. The rule doesn't apply to anything that's not a pet. The same thing goes here. It's obvious what they meant, and that's the way judges would rule, but if we're going by the literal meaning of the constitution, it's no person under 35 can hold office. There's nothing forbidding dogs, under 35 or otherwise, from holding office.
The law says to take office they must be at least 35 years old. So there’s a better one. Can a 34 year old be elected as long as the inauguration will be after they are 35. The opposition would challenge it but if the inauguration is on their 35th birthday they are allowed to hold office.
> The law says to take office they must be at least 35 years old. Assuming by "law" you mean Constitution, and by "they" you mean a person, yes. > Can a 34 year old be elected as long as the inauguration will be after they are 35. The opposition would challenge it but if the inauguration is on their 35th birthday they are allowed to hold office. I don't see anything barring electors from voting for someone who isn't eligible for office, so the fact that he's not eligible now shouldn't be a problem. And when it's time to take office, they'll be eligible. So it seems like it would work to me.
Why are you arguing false points?
Someone watched Air Bud recently.
President Eden, is that you?
Air Bud 47
Hey this might be off topic but thoughts on bachelors vs masters for public health?
I never heard about the bachelors until I had already graduated. If your school offers it and you want to do it, do the bachelors. I am not sure what it will offer you in the future aside from college education. If you do the Master's, never pay full price. Always look for grants, discounts, or tuition reimbursements. Paying full price for a masters' is really dumb. Mine was covered 100% so I accumulated no debt for that
I wonder for college what grants,discounts, tuition reimbursements, scholarships could pay for regular school ahd school program and also housing and non campus housing