Obama Citizenship

Candidate Qualifications: DNC Claims They Can?t Make States Determine Candidate Eligibility

By Phil

In my continuing coverage of Candidate Qualifications, long-time readers of this blog Richard Lawrence and Jean brought the following to my attention (from Richard):

A DNC brief states they are a private organization and have no authority to dictate to the states, so does this mean the Secretarys of State can not legally rely on the DNC to vet presidential candidates before certifying them for the ballot or before certifying that the electors vote for a ?qualified? candidate? …

It?s a legal brief in which on p. 37, the DNC admits that they have no authority to assume any type of ?state action.?

Which means that the Secretary?s of State (all 50) CANNOT rely on the DNC to vet the presidential candidate.

I?ve included the brief?.It?s long, so the gist of it is a Florida resident Dimaio was pissed off that the DNC wouldn?t change the schedule for the Florida primary and he some how felt that it violated his 14th Amendment, but since the DNC admitted that they do not represent the state and are private, they can and will do whatever they please as long as it complies with their rules and bylaws.

Therefore, if this is the case, how could any secretary of state rely on a private agency to tell them that a presidential candidate is eligible to be put on the ballot. They can?t!

In addition, earlier in the brief it states that each state?s democratic party has to furnish to the DNC it?s rules for selecting electors. I?d be curious to know if they followed those rules?or even if all states complied.

I think this is a goldmine of information, because this brief lists a ton of case law stating that the DNC has absolutely no power to influence the states or dictate to the states on what they should do?although the brief is primarily in regards to delegates, I think there might be a something that can help. I?m no legal expert.

While Richard has done a great job of helping out with the eligibility issue, be aware that he is making his own conclusions about the below document. Whenever I get some time, I may read through the entire document myself (I briefly scanned it before posting here) to get a better handle of what it says as well.

PDF document:

• Dimaio Brief

-Phil

Full post as published by The Right Side of Life on December 17, 2008 (boomark / email).