dtucker300 Loc: Vista, CA

By HANK BERRIEN
May 3, 2019
On Thursday, the California state Senate took a shot at President Trump, passing a bill that would require presidential candidates to release five years' worth of income tax returns or not appear on the primary ballot.

Pete Buttigieg Releases 10 Years Of Tax Returns

As AP reported, a similar bill was passed in 2017, but Gov. Jerry Brown, who himself would not release his tax returns while in office, vetoed the bill, claiming it was unconstitutional. Brown stated, "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?"

But new California Governor Gavin Newsom may well sign the bill, which is coauthored by state Sen. Mike McGuire and state Sen. Scott Wiener, who authored the 2017 bill.

In 2017, McGuire stated, "For decades, every president has put their personal beliefs aside and put our country first and released their returns. The American people shouldn’t be in the dark about their president’s financial entanglements." Wiener added, "This bill is about giving the American people the honesty and transparency they deserve from anyone who wishes to serve as their president.”

This week, McGuire stated, “We believe that President Trump, if he truly doesn’t have anything to hide, should step up and release his tax returns.” He said recently, “President Trump’s refusal to release his income tax returns has broken a time-honored, bipartisan tradition which has weakened our democracy and his jaw dropping business conflicts have now put the security of our nation at risk.”

Last December, McGuire ranted, “Voters not only deserve full disclosure of their leader’s tax returns, they should be entitled to them. If President Trump had released his tax returns we would know why he’s ignoring intelligence agencies and snuggling up to the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, who has been linked to the brutal killing of Jamal Khashoggi. Transparency is a nonpartisan issue and it’s time to put the speculation to bed and bring to light any conflicts of interest that could drive an American president into the arms of a foreign power. It’s time to make President Trump’s tax returns public.”

Newsom spokesman Brian Ferguson said the bill “would be evaluated on its own merits.”

McGuire noted that Newsom has released his tax returns, adding, “I never want to put words into his mouth, but here’s what I’ll say: Gov. Newsom has led by example.” He said, “We can all debate on the floor about the constitutionality of this bill. But we also have to look at what makes our democracy strong. The foundation of any successful government is transparency.”

AP wrote, “Candidates would have to submit tax returns to the secretary of state’s office, which would work with the candidates to redact some information before posting the returns online.”

Similar bills have been proposed in New Jersey and Washington state.

According to a Morning Consult poll in April, a bare majority of respondents, 51%, want to see Trump’s tax returns released.
My comment;
(And they are all Socialists because they don't like anyone who is wealthy).
This does not appear Constitutional; (Article 1, Section 2, Clause 1.) "the Electors in each state shall have the qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State legislature."

James Wilson summarized the constitutional convention as follows: "It was difficult to form any uniform rule of qualifications for all the states." Unnecessary innovations, he thought, should also be avoided: "It would be very hard & disagreeable for the same persons, at the same time, to vote for representatives in the State Legislature and be excluded from a vote for those in the Natl. Legislature." The constitution gives authority for determining elector qualifications to the states. But we are not talking about elector qualifications here. We are talking about a state(s) preventing a candidate from being on the primary ballot. The state authority is superseded only insofar as the Constitution itself forbids the denial of equal protection and the exclusion of voters on specific grounds (i.e., 15th, 19th, 24th, 26th Amendments).

Article 1, section 4, allows Congress to "make or alter such [state] Regulations" regarding "the Times, Places and Manner of holding elections" but not who votes. Both Hamilton and Madison argued in the Federalist Papers that the state would determine who could vote but not who could run for National office such as President. Kramer v. Union Free School District No. 15 (1969); the Court applied the Equal Protection Clause to invalidate state regulations that excluded classes of voters from the franchise. In Oregon v. Mitchell (1970) the court upheld congressional regulation of federal election over contrary state laws.

Tashijian v. Republican Party of Connecticut (1986) determined that a closed primary violated freedom of association and therefore conflicted with Connecticut Republican Party rule that permitted independent voters to vote in Republican Primaries for federal and statewide offices. The court struck down California's blanket primary law in California Democratic Party v. Jones (2000). Consequently, Tashijian determined party rules did not violate the Elector Qualification Clause. The court added that primaries are subject to these clauses.

There will surely be a court challenge to this ill-advised vote by the CA legislature as it has overstepped it bounds.

Seth

They violate federal immigration law as a matter of policy and get clean away with it, so now they're emboldened to pull this malarkey as well.

A rule change like this isn't theirs to enact, not on that level, and any attempt to change this via Congress would never clear the Senate, let alone the Supreme Court.

Perhaps California should take their "world's eighth largest economy" and secede from the U.S. They can be their own country, we can withdraw our military assets and move them further north, cut off all our non-retirement Social Security and other non-retirement social services spending, Homeland Security, education, law enforcement, FEMA and other federal taxpayer funding to "the world's eighth largest economy" and let them enjoy their open borders and sanctuary policies with Gavin Newsome as their president.

dtucker300 Loc: Vista, CA

I would be Happy if LA and SF would leave, or form a new state among themselves, so the rest of us in CA wouldn't be stuck with their BS.

Kevyn

The thing that is funny is evidently you don’t realize that our presidential election is run by the states not the federal government. They are entirely free to enact this change as several other states already leave.

Rose42

Say what you will. This shows the democrats have no integrity.

youngwilliam Loc: Deep in the heart

We all know that. Don't worry about Cali, most there vote socialist anyway. Hey, maybe we can get New York to not vote, then Trump will be a shoe in. Idiots.

Kevyn

Quite the contrary, they are making sure their voters have all the information they need to make an informed decision.

Rose42

Wrong again. You can say whatever you want about Trump and dirty politics but you support the same thing in your party time and time again.

Voters have the information they need. There's enough information out there on Trump to make an educated decision on whether or not who to vote for. Democrats want to cheat.

Seth

Hold that thought, Kevyn. We'll see how that works out for them if it has to be run through SCOTUS.

House and Senate elections send people to Washington to represent their states' interests. A presidential election is for the CEO of the entire federal government.

There is a difference.

Lonewolf

There are some 20 states working on the same thing so trump can't run because he don't dare release his taxes.

youngwilliam Loc: Deep in the heart

Can't run where, in the socialist states.
Maybe he can pull an obammy and fake his tax returns like obammy faked his birth cert.

dtucker300 Loc: Vista, CA

You must not have read my entire post. The election may be run by the state, but not the selection of candidates. The only requirements for Presidential Candidates: Article II, Section 1, Clause 5. "No Person except a natural born citizen [under common law principle "jus soli and jus sanguinis"]..., shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained the age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

I figured you must agree with the CA decision because you probably have TDS. Another reason the Democrats keep digging a deeper hole for themselves are the stupid things they do like this. There is an old saying, "When you find yourself in a hole, quit digging!" It is getting mighty deep for the Democrats. This decision will never pass muster. It is blatantly unconstitutional because of precedence and procedural reasons. Even the 9th Circuit would have a hard time justifying this move.

Remember your words and these words after the 2020 election because you are going to eat them.

dtucker300 Loc: Vista, CA

Absolutely!

dtucker300 Loc: Vista, CA

No worries. In 2016 it was more than apparent to everyone that Hillary would take CA by a huge majority, and she did. Trump managed to win anyway because we have an electoral college the mitigates the passions of the mob mentality and uninformed. Fortunately, this has occurred only a few times in presidential elections. The Founders had a lot of wisdom to protect us from mob mentality. Democrats brought this on themselves; remember this in 2020! They will not give up easily when power is involved because they are more interested in gaining power, power over everyone, than doing the right thing for Americans. There are too many Americans who also hate this country and are self-loathing people who don't have their head screwed on straight. We call them Democrats. There are a few Republicans as well. Many get elected to Congress. We call most of them RINOs.

Thank god LA and NY can't elect the President by themselves.

Seth

Imposing such restrictions on who's on the presidential ballot would also mean that the only "viable" candidate available to vote for in a state pulling such a move is the Democrat -- sounds a lot like the kind of "election" one might expect to involve Robert Mugabe or some other tinpot banana republic despot -- could rightly be grounds for that state's "election" results to be declared null and void as they do not reflect the will of a significant number of voters (believe me, there are large pockets of conservatives in California who are frustrated by the leftist majority), which in the final analysis would only hurt the Democratic Party; how well does anyone think Hillary would have done on her much vaunted popular vote without Los Angeles, San Francisco and Silicon Valley?