Lesson 48: Who Can Become President?
In this lesson, we will look at the requirements listed in the Constitution for
being president. We will also discuss the definition of “natural born citizen”
and talk about a few controversies that have arisen over this requirement. We
will look at the average age and background of those who have become president
and discuss the significance of electoral votes and the popular vote. Finally,
we will look at how the election process for choosing the president and vice
president was changed in 1804 with the 12th amendment.
The requirements of becoming president are not that stringent.
Article II, Section 1, of the Constitution says:
"No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at
the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office
of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not
have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a
Resident within the United States."
Once elected, the president's salary is $400,000 with $169,000 for annual
expenses, travel, and entertainment. Plus, he lives rent free in the White House.
The language in the Constitution says the president must be a natural born
citizen. What exactly does that mean? Does the child have to be born in the
United States or does it extend to children who are born to U.S. Citizens while
they are traveling abroad?
One day, this requirement will be challenged in the Supreme Court and
there will be a more concrete interpretation.
There have been some issues through the years starting with Mitt Romney's
father who ran for president.
George Romney ran in 1968. He was born in Chihuahua, Mexico.
Senator Ted Cruz ran in 2016. He was born in Canada.
Barack Obama was elected in 2008 and
reelected in 2012. He was born in Hawaii,
but there was some controversy over whether or not that was true.
Even though the minimum age is 35,
no president has been anywhere near that. John F. Kennedy was our youngest
president at the age of 43. The average president is inaugurated at the age of
54.
Most presidents have been white, male,
and protestant. There have only been two exceptions. John F. Kennedy was
Catholic and Barack Obama is African American.
The candidates are nominated by each party every four years at the national
conventions. When the voters vote in the general election, those votes are
counted to determine how the state voted on the candidates, but the electors
are the ones who actually cast the official vote in the electoral college.
Because of the electoral college system we have in place, there have been times
when a president has won the popular vote but lost the election because of the
electoral college. Also, there have been times when a president did not receive
the majority vote in the electoral college but was elected president because
there were more than two candidates.
In the 1800 election, Thomas Jefferson versus John Adams, Jefferson and his
running mate, Aaron Burr, received the same number of electoral votes. The way
the system was outlined in the Constitution, the candidate with the most
electoral votes would be president, and the one with the second most votes
would be vice-president. Since there was a tie, it was up to the House of
Representatives to choose, and after much chaos, they chose Thomas Jefferson
for president and Aaron Burr for vice-president.
As a result of that confusion, the 12th Amendment was ratified.
The Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution was adopted in 1804,
and specified the separate election of the president and the vice president by
the electoral college.