Qualifications for Office

I read an interesting suggestion on Twitter a few days ago that candidates for office ought to be required to pass a background check to confirm eligibility for a security clearance at a level appropriate to the position they are seeking. I thought this was a particularly good idea, especially given what we now know about the cavalier attitude of Der Furor toward sensitive, highly classified information, and the sort of people we are electing to positions of responsibility (towering intellects like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, Ron Johnson, and Louie Gohmert, for instance).

If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you know that I'm a retired military officer and career intelligence professional. I have held a security clearance up to Top Secret, with access to Special Compartmented Information (SCI) and a number of special access programs. I was investigated and vetted on a regular basis, filled out dozens of very intrusive SF 86s (both the paper and the electronic versions), had my friends and neighbors questioned about my history and activities, had my bank accounts and credit history scrutinized in depth, and submitted to a polygraph examination (not a pleasant way to spend a day, I can assure you). After all that, people I never met used all that information to review my entire life in detail and make their best guess about whether or not I could be trusted with sensitive information. Oddly enough (my family and friends would say), I passed muster and held a security clearance with special accesses for a total of 43 years.

Now consider that we elect to the presidency and to Congress people who, if their lives were examined in the detail that mine was, would never be allowed within miles of information classified at the lowest level (Confidential), much less the highest (Top Secret), or of information protected in SCI or special access channels. We (well, not me, but a lot of other people) voted into the White House a childish, spiteful known liar with a long track record of failed business ventures, bankruptcies, and allegations of sexual assault, and gave him unrestricted access to the most valuable and sensitive information in the country. He treated that information as his personal property, handled it carelessly, and took it with him without permission when he lost his job.

If you or I had done any of that, we'd have been at best out of a job, or at worst, in prison.

So, why do we let this happen? Why do we not require at the very least the successful completion of a simple "national agency check" for people we entrust with the crown jewels?

My old friend Ed, one of the few lawyers I actually respect, answered my question this way - 

"Unfortunately, it can’t be done for the most important office of all, the President, because the qualifications are set in the Constitution and no law can add to or subtract from them. We could do it as an electorate by refusing to consider any candidate who doesn’t pass one, but we’ve seen the futility of expecting the electorate to follow such common sense guidelines."

By way of reminder, this is what the Constitution (Article 2, Section 1, Article 5) establishes as the qualifications to serve as President - 

"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."

To recap: to serve as President of the United States, the most powerful individual in the world, literally holding the lives of billions of people in his or her hands, a person must be native born (not naturalized), at least 35 years old, and have lived in the country for 14 years. The requirements to adopt a child or get a new car loan are more stringent than that.

I'm not sure that Ed's contention that "no law can add to or subtract from them" is entirely accurate, as we could amend the Constitution to add additional requirements, but the chances of that are vanishingly small. I do agree wholeheartedly with his comment about the futility of expecting the electorate to follow "common sense guidelines," common sense having vanished from our political discourse long ago.

Nevertheless, if I were king*, here are the four minimum requirements I would establish for election (or appointment) to any national-level office:

1. Native-born citizen. Because a naturalized citizen may retain political or emotional ties to his or her native country, he or she could be vulnerable to blackmail or pressure because of relatives or business interests there. An exception might be made for individuals who were naturalized when they were small children, or who gained their citizenship an appropriate number of years ago (suggest an arbitrary minimum of 20).

 

2. Between 35 and 62 years of age. We need elected officials who are old enough to have gained some life experience. Thirty-five is as arbitrary a number as any, but strikes me as reasonably balancing youth and vigor with age and experience. But just as we need our elected officials to be old enough to be mature, we need to accept that there is a general tendency for one's health and mental acuity to fade with advancing age. It's hard to decide what the upper age limit should be, but I would suggest that, for the presidency, a maximum age of 62 on assumption of office is not unreasonable. The staggering workload and responsibilities of the presidency are hard on a younger person, much less someone in their 70s or beyond. A president elected at age 62 would be 70 at the end of his or her second term - young enough to serve as a mentor to younger candidates, but old enough to ameliorate the risk of additional terms being complicated by physical and mental impairment**. Consider that Ronald Reagan at age 77 was visibly diminished by the end of his second term, that President Biden will be 82 at the end of his term, and Der Furor (should he, gawd forbid, gain office again) would be 78 at inauguration. An upper age limit for the presidency is worth at least considering.

3. Educated. At the absolute least, a president should have completed high school (12 years of basic education). A college education would be preferable, but I think we've seen that higher education is not always proof of one's actually being smart. We need people making decisions who can read, write, and think analytically, and who have some basic idea of the nation's history - warts and all. 

4. Adjudicated, on the basis of a full national security background investigation, as qualified for access to the highest level of classified information. If you have the power to make sweeping economic decisions, negotiate treaties, and launch nuclear missiles, you definitely ought have a clean record.

We now have plenty of experience of the calamitous result of electing an individual to the presidency who is manifestly unfit for the job. We won't solve that problem in the short or medium term by strengthening the requirements to hold the office, so we need to rely on the collective wisdom of the voting public.

But based on the behavior of the supporters and enablers of Der Furor, we're probably doomed.

Have a good day. Use your vote to elect qualified and responsible people to office, not to stick a finger in the eye of The Man.

More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

* Of course, we have a Constitution that says we can't have a king, although Der Furor and his enablers don't see it that way.

** Full disclosure: I am 70 years old as I write this; I'll hit 71 in another three months.