"The bill would require all presidential candidates to release the last five years of their tax returns in order to appear on the California ballot."

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Other states should follow

You BET it's about time! Long PAST time, in my opinion.

As things stand right now Cali is a solid blue state. So in essence we're forcing the Democratic candidate to release his/her tax returns while giving the Republican candidate zero reason to follow suit.

If a battleground state or federal law made it mandatory then I'd be for it.

Especially after Trump clearly lied, (that he would release them) and by now it's so obvious that he had so much corrupt shit to hide... any future candidate who tries to dodge the tax return issue will be cannon fodder.

I think future candidates will note that Trump got elected despite not releasing tax returns.

(With Russian help, of course.) Americans hate being lied to (witness Trumps base freaking out over possible DACA reversal). Witness "Read my lips, no new taxes ". Witness "I did not have sex with that woman". Even "You can keep your doctor " (which wasn't actually a lie, just a promise that Obama had no control to keep).

Sure, we Americans can be very forgiving when there's a seemingly sincere apology, but we all know trump is incapable of admitting any sort of failure...so this is going to be remembered bitterly for a long time. IMO.

Previous candidates respected & observed tradition. this con man has no regard for neither tradition of the rule of law. hoping other blue states will follow California's example.

From his former best friend Putin. Trump is the most corrupt, racist, and dishonest president in United States history.

his name won't appear on the ballot and the only votes he will get will be write-ins. Seem that is a bit of an incentive.

Unless there's a chance of it flipping (which would be extremely disturbing on many levels) then it doesn't really matter if the R candidate appears on the ballot.

says that we only bother having elections in states that might go either way and ignore the states that are solid Blue or solid Red. I'm not at all sure that would be a good idea.

There's also a reason why presidential candidates spend the vast majority of their time and money in only a handful of states.

for president, it will affect Republican turnout in local elections, as well as US house and US Senate.

give it up entirely. Not with that many votes.

Imagine the symbolic implication of a Republican candidate being unqualified for the ballot in the most populous state. If there was zero reason for them to be on the ballot, they wouldn't go through the trouble of getting it there in the first place. If nothing else it virtually insures they will lose the popular vote, which while irrelevant to the outcome still represents how much of a mandate a candidate has.

Even if they are all blue states, republican scamdidates will not be able to bypass them all.

Then they'd not appear on the GOP ballot, and not get the California delegates.

The qualifications for President are limited to the Constitutional description. A law that adds requirements for ballot placement will not get past the SCOTUS. I guarantee it. Not a chance.

Article II, Section 1:

The question is whether a state can demand things of a presidential candidate to determine whether he/she is on the ballot or not. I'm saying that I think the SCOTUS would say no. That's not my preference, but my assessment of what the SCOTUS would do. I believe the California law would be deemed to be unconstitutional.

Please do not conflate my assessment of SCOTUS action with my opinion about the law. I'm not on the SCOTUS.

See my post 41.

There are many things required by states to get on the ballot that are totally unrelated to being 35, a natural born citizen and a resident within the U.S. for 14 years.

Examples include (but are not limited to):
* getting signatures of eligible voters,
* meeting date deadlines, and
* paying qualifying fees.

Unless SCOTUS is going to throw out these and other state ballot requirements, I don't see how they throw out the new CA rule.

As long as Cali is headed down that path. Just saying

Like you don't see the difference between financial transparency (to make sure the candidate can't be manipulated by people he or she owes money to) and an IQ test?
Get real.

And we'd like our POTUS to NOT be those things (i.e., we thought intelligence and sanity were a given, before now. )

I took the suggestion as an addition, not am equivalency. And I thought your response was harsh and unkind.

Edit, meant to respond to Azureblue's post. Apologies!

Just a couple more big blue states and the law essentially becomes national. The electoral college votes from a few big states will mean no one can win office without handing over their taxes.

California, New York, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey.

Unless it passes in a swing state like Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania or Florida, it won't matter

1237 out of 2472 delegates were required to clench the Republican nomination.
California had 172, accounting by itself for 7% of available delegates.
Add in NY's 89, and we're already over 10%.

That could become a serious obstacle pretty quick, and if you can't get nominated...

You might not even cross the first hurdle, let alone make it on the ballot that counts...

Russia is already getting some payback from their selection of orange assface, now they are in the process of fucking over our judicial system. They want Drumpf and his cronies in office, regardless of if they are found guilty of criminal election interference or not.

in Red States with voter suppression, etc...

A law to make Fed Tax returns public is not within Fed. jurisdiction.

Income taxes came around long after the U.S. Constitution was written.

I don't know that anything's safe. Did you see how they approved Texas' totally gerrymandered voting map to be reinstated? Kennedy will always vote with the R's on voting issues and for big business, where he deviates is in personal civil rights.

leave the U.S. to from our own nation.

A good friend in Sonora has some property and had said we could either buy some of his land if we wanted or just build a house or move a trailer there. There's no way I'll stay here in redneck No. FL. if that happened.

I spent a lot of happy time there with them and my cousins.

Do they still have the fair on labor day weekend? We never missed that.

to the fair twice in four summers.. There are free summer weekend concerts at the Art Park in town which we go to once in a while.
I like that we're relatively close to the high country in Yosemite and the eastern Sierra for summer camping and hiking.

When housing prices were coming back, we sold our small house on the coast (that was worth way more than we cared to live there) to get away from the growing crowds and fog to be a bit more 'off the grid'.

Do you remember what area they lived in? The road's name?
Cousins still live in the area?

We're on Fox Creek Rd. (Tip Top / Triangle Rd area) The Middle Fork of the Chowchilla River runs through the prop.

It was west fall road then and up past Triangle. My real estate agent sister keeps tabs on the house and says the road name has been changed to old mill road. She wants to buy that house again someday. They built it themselves in the late 60's and it was the gathering spot for their kids and grandkids who are scattered around California then and now.

We used to go to dinner at a place in Bootjack that I think was called 'The White House' and my grandparents were members of a squaredancing club called the Bootjack Stompers!

You've taken me down memory lane today! I'm still close with my cousins and we all have fond memories of Mariposa.

If so I think that would be very beneficial.

don't produce tax returns. That might circumvent some of the legal system if release of taxes is made a requirement for ballot and debate participation.

It's absurd that two of the most recent vocal politicians ridiculing other candidates did not release their tax returns.

I can't see SCOTUS allowing states to impose requirements to running for President other than those stated in the Constitution - natural born citizen, at least 35 and US resident for at least 14 years. I can hear the slippery slope questions from oral argument now with all manner of bizarre possibilities.

term limits on their own federal offices - I think SCOTUS will shoot this down pretty quickly.

No reason to give someone a platform to attack others when they can't be transparent themselves. No foreign money. Taxes should absolutely be a requirement.

States have all sorts of restrictions, paperwork, deadlines, legal requirements.

This is but another hurdle.