Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Can Hillary be President?

An interesting case:

An 80-year-old Reno man has filed a lawsuit claiming the U.S. Constitution doesn't allow for women to run for president.

Douglas Wallace says the Constitution refers to "he" and "his" in describing presidential duties and because of that, a woman can't hold the office.

Wallace says the Constitution would have to be amended to allow New York Senator Hillary Clinton to appear on this November's presidential ballot.

Legal scholars call the suit "without merit."



Stupid? Yes. It makes an interesting debate for those that try to split hairs over wording though.

Article. II.

Section 1.

The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows:

4 comments:

me said...

This was discussed a while back, when she was just thinking of running.

Hey, the constitution "has to be read as it appears" crowd who thinks the 2nd only applies to state militias told us so in the Heller case.

It'll get heaved out.

The real question is can bHo be pres with his ties to criminals, revolutionaries, and drug use. What else does he have going on that would significantly open him up to blackmail?

Anonymous said...

In a way, this is really funny, because to allow Hillary to run and be elected, the argument by the leftists and feminists and democrats will have to be that in the English language, "the male embraces the female." As I was taught by the nuns lo these many years ago....

The explosions you will hear? Don't mind them. They will be the heads exploding in every Womyn's Studies department in the country.

Anonymous said...

Hillary's a female???

How can that be? She has short hair and wears pants.

I dare any of you to provide rock solid evidence of this wild speculation.

Anonymous said...

According to the accepted rules of English grammar when the Constitution was written (or for that matter, 37 years ago when I graduated high school), the male embraces the female, so "he" and "his" do not by themselves require the President be male. Of course, one could argue from original intent that clearly the writers did not intend for women to be eligible, since they weren't even allowed to vote[1] - but if the courts cared about that, we'd be able to buy machine guns at Walmart without showing ID, and the hottest argument about the 2nd Amendment would be whether field artillery was covered...

[1] There were a few exceptions to this - widows without male relatives could vote in some states. But mainly, Presidents have to be old enough and a citizen by birth, and I see no support for claiming the Constitution currently doesn't allow women to be citizens.