Kamala Harris's other presidential eligibility question (and yes, she's qualified)

I noted earlier that 2020 has proven (so far) to be a quiet year for “natural born” citizen challenges. Senator Kamala Harris of California briefly ran for the Democratic presidential nomination, and she’s been named former Vice President Joe Biden’s running mate. It might lead to a flurry of challenges to her eligibility, as she was born to two (possibly) non-citizen immigrants (the details are thin about when her parents became citizens) in California. That, I think, makes her a “natural born citizen,” as Professors Eugene Volokh and Michael Ramsey point out. She must meet these qualifications because, as the Twelfth Amendment provides, “But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.”

But I wanted to highlight another eligibility question (and spoiler alert, despite my clickbait-y headline, she’s qualified). The President must be “fourteen Years a resident within the United States.” Ms. Harris moved to Canada as a child, and she attended and graduated from high school there.

One ambiguity is whether this means fourteen consecutive years (including the fourteen most recent consecutive years) or fourteen cumulative years. Practice has long recognized it to be cumulative. Thomas Jefferson’s stint in France before serving as Vice President and President (before the Twelfth Amendment, but still a requirement to receive votes as presidential candidate), or Herbert Hoover’s service in London before his term in office, suggest as much. Alternatively, one might say that they were still “residents” of the United States, as it was the last true, permanent home with the intent to remain indefinitely, even if time away moved them abroad. Ms. Harris’s example seems less like Messrs. Jefferson and Hoover in that regard—she moved out of the country, established residence elsewhere, and later moved back to the United States.

Regardless, even if she was a resident of Canada for several years, she easily meets fourteen cumulative years as a resident of the United States. And, more to the point, actually, she meets fourteen consecutive recent years, as she attended college and law school in the United States in the 1980s, easily meeting thirty-plus years’ residency in the United States.

Regardless, her candidacy, like that of Canadian-born Senator Ted Cruz, offers a little something to test out the existing presidential qualifications framework.