I am proud that Senators Mike McGuire and Scott Wiener’s bill, SB 27 — Presidential primary elections: ballot access: tax returns, just passed the California Senate and is headed for the Assembly. The bill states that if you’re a presidential candidate who is not willing to show your returns for the 5 most recent taxable years, you are not getting on the California primary ballot in 2020. Passed along party lines in the Senate, it is expected to pass the Assembly in much the same fashion and then go to Governor Gavin Newsom’s desk for his signature.
While the enactment of this bill as law is for the most part pretty popular in deep blue California, there are, of course, Trump supporters who are spitting mad about what they are calling an all-out attack on their hero and the Constitution. According to them, the Constitution only states that a person must be an American citizen, 35 years of age or older to run for president, it mentions nothing about showing tax returns. And if we were talking about the general election, they would be right.
However, the Constitution doesn’t mention a word about primaries, in fact there weren’t primaries until New Hampshire held the first one in 1920. Primaries, their requirements and the rules by which they are run are completely regulated by the states and the parties that participate in them. When to hold them, whether to have open primaries or just allow registered party members to vote in them is entirely up to the parties and the state.
For example, in California primaries Democrats allow “Decline to State” registered voters to vote on the selection of their candidates as well as Democrats, but Republicans only allow Republicans to vote. Same state, same primary election, different rules. In addition, California moved their 2020 primary from June to March because there is nothing in the Constitution that says they can’t.
Some states don’t have primaries, they have caucuses (don’t get me started on the rules governing caucuses) and some states have both. The Democratic party in some caucus states has recently decided to switch to primaries in 2020.
In other words, if states and the parties that participate in their primaries or caucuses want to decree that the candidate must wear a green satin dress to be on the ballot, it may seem stupid and unreasonable, but there is not a single word in the Constitution to gainsay that requirement.
Asking that a candidate show his or her returns for the 5 most recent taxable years is neither stupid nor unreasonable. As we have now learned the hard way, hiding who a candidate is financially beholden to, whether their investments and deductions are legitimate, or if they’ve earned more or less than they’ve publicly stated means that they can be dangerously compromised by foreign governments or unsavory characters. That’s why every presidential candidate since Jimmy Carter has released their tax returns.
And if Individual 1 wants to be on the California primary ballot, he’d better shut up and put up his tax returns. It may not matter if he wins California’s general election, but it sure as hell will put a crimp in his nomination plans if he can’t win the 172 Republican delegates awarded in California’s primary election.