Excess of Democracy

View Original

Is the Green Party's vice presidential nominee Ajamu Baraka ineligible for office?

Perhaps you thought the constitutional eligibility concerns for 2016 had reached their end (and you'd no longer have any reason to read my article on the process behind challenges over such disputes), but perhaps they continue....

Jill Stein, the presumptive Green Party nominee, just named her vice presidential running mate--Ajamu Baraka, a Chicago native and human rights activist who now lives in Atlanta.

But quite recently, Mr. Baraka lived in Colombia. A 2015 blog entry on his site describes him as someone who lives in Cali, Colombia. And other media mentions around that time mention him as someone from Colombia.

The eligibility concern relates his residency at that time. (Recall that vice presidents must not be ineligible for the office of president.) Article II provides among other qualifications that a candidate must be "fourteen Years a resident within the United States."

There is some evidence, but certainly not unanimous, that these fourteen years must be accumulated consecutively prior to securing office. But there is some evidence that the requirement can be met cumulatively, over the total course of one's life prior to securing the office.

Additionally, there is the question of what "resident" means. Does living for a stretch of time in Colombia mean one is no longer a "resident" of the United States? It may well mean something like domicile, and a temporary, even extended, presence in another country would not thwart such residency. (James Ho succinctly summarizes some of these views here.)

In short, there is probably good evidence that Mr. Baraka was a resident fourteen years consecutively, and even if he wasn't, that the Constitution permits such residence to be acquired cumulatively. But in the event one concludes that the Constitution requires consecutive residency and that his time in Colombia broke up that residency, then Mr. Baraka would be ineligible.

That might lead to interesting disputes in the event someone sought to challenge Mr. Baraka to keep him--and half of the Green Party's ticket--off the ballot in states that permitted such challenges. Might--one never knows where such challenges to candidate eligibility may lead.