A Mighty Short Exploration For Paul
By Vince Leibowitz on Mar 11, 2007 in 2008 Presidential Race, 2008 Texas Elections ![[Post to Twitter]](/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/icons/tt-twitter.png){kind=icon}
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Texas Congressman Ron Paul (R-Surfside) announced only three months ago that he was creating an exploratory committee to look at a presidential run.
Evidently, it was a mighty short exploration. Paul is announcing his candidacy on Monday:
Snyder said Paul is scheduled to be a guest on [C-SPAN's]
“Washington Journal” Monday morning and will make his announcement then.Paul, a nine-term congressman who represents a district just south of Houston that includes Galveston and stretches along the Gulf Coast nearly to Corpus Christi, describes himself as a lifelong Libertarian running as a Republican.
And, that’s all she wrote folks. “Lifelong Libertarian running as a Republican.” He could be a lifelong Circus Elephant running as a Polar Bear and it would make no difference.
Ron Paul has about as much of chance being elected President of the United States (or, even winning a straw poll in Texas) as a troup of acrobatic sewer rats.
That said, with Paul running for the Presidency, it means that his Congressional seat might be up for grabs.
I say “might,” of course, because no one actually expects Paul to “go the distance” with his presidential run. I am sure he’ll flounder out somewhere along Mid-November and simply run for his old seat in Congress again.
Of course, I am not sure if Paul would have to not seek re-election to his Congressional seat if he was a presidential candidate on through the primaries.
Dennis Kucinich, after all, was “running” up until the convention in 2004 (did he ever stop) and would have been up for re-election to Congress that same year as well. He’s still in congress, so we know he was able to seek both.
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I know for a fact that one can run for the Senate and the Presidential ticket simultaneously in Texas (through the LBJ law), so I don’t see why he couldn’t run for the House at the same time as president.
Paul can run for both ONLY if he files for re-election to Congress by the filing deadline…It was easy for Dennis the Menace in Ohio because there Democratic Primary is held AFTER the Democratic National Convention….It won’t be that easy for Paul as our primary filing deadline is the first of January 08 and the primary (now) is in March–long before the GOP presidential race will be decided. If the primary is moved back to February (as some are proposing so we can supposedly have some impact on the presidential nomination race) Paul would have to file for re-election around Thanksgiving of THIS YEAR in order to insure that he could stay in the House if he fails to get the GOP presidential nomination. This suggests that his U.S. House seat may be open in 08….but we won’t know for sure until after the primary filing deadline.
P.S. The so-called “LBJ Law” that allowed Lyndon Johnson to run for both re-election to the U.S. Senate and Vice-President in 1960 (and gave Lloyd Bentsen the same opportunity in 86) APPLIES ONLY to STATEWIDE OFFICES…A candidate for the U.S. House CAN NO DO BOTH….
Not as I read the Texas Election Code, in which it says:
Sec. 141.033. FILING APPLICATIONS FOR MORE THAN ONE OFFICE
PROHIBITED.
(a) A candidate may not file applications for a place
on the ballot for two or more offices that:
(1) are not permitted by law to be held by the same
person; and
(2) are to be voted on at one or more elections held on
the same day.
(b) If a person files more than one application for a place
on a ballot in violation of this section, each application filed
subsequent to the first one filed is invalid.
(c) This section does not apply to candidacy for the office
of president or vice-president of the United States and another
office.
“Another office” tells me that it doesn’t specify statewides, but I am not a lawyer. I also don’t know if any federal statutes supercede state law - though I know that in general, the states decide the eligibility of federal office past the requirements found in the Constitution.
Ohio is not Texas, and they may have a different take on it.