California’s anti-Trump governor Gavin Newsom has just signed a law aimed at keeping Trump off the Republican primary ballot in 2020 unless he releases his taxes:
VARIETY – California governor Gavin Newsom has signed a law into immediate effect that would require President Trump to disclose his tax returns in order to appear on the California Republican primary ballot.
The law, which was approved by the legislature along party lines earlier this month, requires all presidential and gubernatorial candidates to disclose the past five years’ worth of tax returns in order to appear on a primary ballot.
“As one of the largest economies in the world and home to one in nine Americans eligible to vote, California has a special responsibility to require this information of presidential and gubernatorial candidates,” Newsom said in a statement. “These are extraordinary times and states have a legal and moral duty to do everything in their power to ensure leaders seeking the highest offices meet minimal standards, and to restore public confidence. The disclosure required by this bill will shed light on conflicts of interest, self-dealing, or influence from domestic and foreign business interest.”
I don’t think there’s any way this law will stand up to scrutiny in the courts.
And it looks like it will be challenged by the Trump campaign:
The law is likely to be challenged in the courts. The communications director for the president’s reelection campaign released a statement to the Los Angeles Times asserting that the new law violates the first amendment right of association and infringes on the Constitution’s power to delineate the requirements for presidential candidates.
At this point Trump doesn’t really need to be on the primary ballot in California, as he doesn’t really have any significant challenges to worry about. But that’s beside the point.
This is nothing more than a flagrant attempt by Democrats to force Trump to release his taxes so that they can try and turn them into a weapon against him in the election. It’s presidential harassment.
If voters believe that Trump releasing his taxes are crucial to voting for him, then that will show up in the polling and if Trump ignores it and loses, that will be the end of it. But clearly, in 2016, voters didn’t care about his taxes and I seriously doubt they will care about them in 2020, especially after all the harassment Trump has been put through by Democrats and the media.