Trump's vice president might need to be from a state besides Florida – Tallahassee Democrat
Could U.S. Senator Marco Rubio be the next Vice President of the United States? Legally?
“His name is coming up a lot for vice president,” former president Donald Trump said about Rubio at a gathering at Mar-a-Lago in May where the senior Florida senator appeared along with other potential VP candidates Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C.; Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio; Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y.; South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem; and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum.
Rubio, 53, who called Trump a “con artist” during the 2016 presidential primary and has opposed many of his policies, particularly on immigration and Ukraine, has been gradually shifting his public opinions to align with the presumptive GOP presidential candidate. He recently dodged the question of whether he would accept the results of the 2024 election, as have the other VP potentials.
Trump has yet to decide on a running mate. The decision may have been delayed by his recent court trial where he became the first former president to be convicted of a crime with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment of $130,000 to adult movie star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
Trump has said there’s a “pretty good chance” he will announce his pick at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee in July, four days after he receives his felony sentencing. Insiders said this week that his campaign requested additional information from at least four of his contenders, Burgham, Vance, Scott and, yes, Rubio, USA TODAY reported.
Trump relentlessly mocked Rubio during the 2016 campaign, calling him “Little Marco.” Rubio responded with a slam against Trump’s spray tan and said he had small hands, “and you know what they say about men with small hands.” But after Trump became the candidate Rubio supported him against Hillary Clinton, and campaigned for him in 2022.
But even if their differences are sorted out, there could be a Constitutional dilemma: Can people from the same state run on the same presidential ticket? Can we have two Florida Men in the White House?
Answer: Yes, but it’s tricky.
The U.S. Constitution has no restrictions on whether the candidates for president and vice president can be from the same state. According to the Constitution, to run for president you must be:
And that’s it, aside from term limitations. The vice president must also meet those qualifications.
However, the Constitution does have restrictions on electoral voters choosing candidates from the same state, and that could be a problem.
If Trump carries Florida, as expected, fellow Floridian Rubio can’t get any electoral votes.
The 12th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution says that, when the Electoral College meets to determine the president, “the electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for two persons, of whom one at least shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves.”
According to PolitiFact, experts have interpreted this to mean that if the two people on the presidential ticket come from the same state, electors from that state can’t vote for both. Trump established his Florida residency at Mar-a-Lago in 2019 and Rubio is on his third term representing the state.
That means the 30 Florida electoral voters can vote for either Trump or Rubio, but not both. Since they’re more likely to vote for Trump, that could potentially leave the country without an elected vice-president.
As Trump has said, “Marco has this residency problem.”
If Florida’s electoral voters vote for Trump, they’ll have to vote for anyone else besides Rubio for veep. If that means there is no VP winner in the electoral college the decision goes to the Senate to choose from the two people with the most votes.
Currently, the Democrats hold a slight edge there but senators elected before the Jan. 20 inauguration would also have a voice and the Dems could lose their lead. And no matter which political party has a majority, they probably wouldn’t have a supermajority to override any filibusters so the final outcome might get messy.
Is a Trump/Harris administration possible under those circumstances? Barely, but it’s probably not on anybody’s wish list.
There’s precedent. Dick Cheney left Texas in 2000 for Wyoming to run for vice president with fellow Texan George W. Bush. But Cheney owned property in Wyoming and had several significant ties to the state, including representing Wyoming in the U.S. House for 10 years.
Rubio would have to give up the Senate seat he currently holds till 2029, potentially giving the Democrats a larger majority in the Senate, and he doesn’t seem to have major ties to anywhere but the Sunshine State.
Also, some states have restrictions or mandatory residency periods before someone can be declared a resident for some purposes. Just buying another house somewhere else might not be enough.
Trump could move himself, of course, but that doesn’t seem terribly likely. He probably won’t move back to his old home in New York, where in separate cases over the last year he was found guilty on felony charges, found guilty of real estate fraud with a $454 million penalty, and found liable for $83.3 million for sexually assaulting and defaming journalist E. Jean Carroll.
Rubio could establish residency in another state and continue to represent Florida in the Senate. The Constitution just says senators have to be residents of their states when elected.
But there could be legal challenges to this sort of move. Whatever happens, it would be an uphill battle.
Originally people ran for president in the U.S. and the person who came in second became the vice president. Each elector was given two votes, one of which had to be for someone outside the electors’s home state to increase the diversity of the candidates and prevent electors from voting in local “favorite sons.”
“However, you can probably see the problem,” said Florida Atlantic University political science professor Kevin Wagner. “The chief vote-getters are likely to be political rivals, and not exactly strong candidates to work together.”
After Thomas Jefferson became the runner-up to rival John Adams in 1796, things got heated. So much so that in 1804 during Jefferson’s first term as president, the United States adopted the 12th Amendment and moved the vice president to a separate ballot but kept the same-state electoral college restriction.
Now the candidates for president and vice president could run on a unified ticket, as they have since.