by Stacey Selleck
You may wonder why U.S. Term Limits would even be asking such a question. What do the 34 felony counts on Donald Trump have to do with term limits? Isn’t that beyond the scope of our mission to secure and defend term limits?
Well, you may have heard our organization’s name in the media a bit lately. While we did have a hearing on our resolution in Congress (chaired by term limits advocate and then Subcommittee Chair turned Speaker of the House Mike Johnson), and we did pass resolutions calling for congressional term limits in three states so far this legislative session (Florida, Tennessee, and Louisiana), our name was also invoked in, not one but, two court cases involving former president, Donald Trump.
The first case was Trump v. Anderson in Colorado where the Secretary of State Jena Griswold sought to deny Trump access to the ballot as a presidential candidate. Griswold claimed that Trump was ineligible due to the 14th Amendment of the Constitution barring insurrectionists from holding federal office.
In that case, U.S. Term Limits submitted an Amicus brief pleading with the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) to not cite a landmark decision from a lawsuit that ruled against us in 1995. In U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton, the SCOTUS set precedent prohibiting the states from imposing any barriers to running for office other than those already codified in the Qualifications clauses in the U.S. Constitution. In the early ’90s, 23 states imposed term limits on their own congressional delegations until Rep. Ray Thornton from Arkansas challenged the state Constitution and won in a 5-4 split decision of the U.S. Supreme Court. That ruling made unconstitutional any state laws that place ballot access requirements, including term limits, on congressional candidates. [Somehow though, the states still impose other qualifications including ballot access fees or a required number of signatures to be collected, but I digress.]
The USTL Amicus brief in the Trump case was neutral in support of neither Trump nor Anderson. Because Colorado was not attempting to use its own laws to disqualify former President Trump but rather the 14th amendment of the U.S. Constitution, USTL claims that Thornton is not relevant to Trump’s case. Additionally, it forcefully argues that Thornton should be overruled by the Court in the near future.
Not only did the SCOTUS cite the Thornton case, it also doubled-down on it and reinforced it.
Back to the 34 felonies on Donald Trump…
U.S. Term Limits v. Thornton is again being invoked in references to the New York case, People v Donald J. Trump (Criminal).
The Constitution lists only three qualifications for the office of President of the United States — the President must be at least 35 years of age, be a natural born citizen, and must have lived in the United States for at least 14 years. It says nothing about holding multiple passports, being born outside of the U.S.A. or being a convicted felon.
So, the Answer is “Yes”. A convicted felon may serve as President of the United States until such time that there is an amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibiting felons from doing so.