Schwarzenegger 2020: Equal Opportunity to Govern

[Icelander]

Assume an alternate history with only the most miniscule changes; i.e. Arnold Schwarzenegger manages to get the Equal Opportunity to Govern Amendment (or a later equivalent) passed and/or wins a legal challenge on the grounds that Section 1 of Article Two of the United States Constitution (i.e. the 'Natural-born-citizen clause') is exclusionary, discriminatory and unconstitutional, in time to campaign for the current elections.

I'm not saying that this is in any way plausible, but I'm looking for the most realistic course of action that might ensue if some mysterious force* was enabling Schwarzenegger to win legal cases everyone expected him to lose and/or successfully lobby politicians of both parties at a much higher rate than would be reasonable.

First of all, which would seem less implausible?

Functional change in law through judicial activism, probably going all the way to the Supreme Court?

Or legal change through Constitutional Amendment?

If someone could give me some guidelines on plausible timelines, here, for whichever option they favor, that would be great.

This is a mere background detail in a game set in 2018--2019, where Schwarzenegger has been much more politically active since leaving the Governor's office and the PCs are aware of some very serious efforts to change the law. If possible, I want to be able to feature in-setting news, analysis and arguments about the ongoing process, just as background colour.

So, where and how would the first law suit be filed? How would Schwarzenegger have standing, considering that he'd have to file in the lowest court many years before the election, too soon to declare as a candidate in that election. In real life, he started in 2003 and there was a short second wind of effort in 2013, which petered out almost immediately in real reality. I'm thinking that this second wind might have been the visible changepoint.

Any comments and suggestions welcome.

*Extremelly well-concealed Alien Space Bats with oddly modest goals and a preference for enacting their nefarious schemes through the path of absolute least resistance. They will change as little as possible.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Since this touches on politics, I'm mostly going to stay out of this, except to say that an amendment to the Constitution, a process which has historically taken anywhere from 100 days to just shy of 203 years, is the only remotely plausible way for this to happen. Oh, and if you want GURPS stats for alien space bats...

[Varyon]

Getting a portion of the constitution rendered unconstitutional strikes me as a complete non-starter, so it would need to be a constitutional amendment. By 2015, Arnie may have sufficient supernatural pull to be able to get the renewed attention at that time to go through and cause an amendment. It needs to have occurred too late for him to run in 2016, however, so it would need to be passed during the Trump administration. Spun correctly, it might be possible to convince Republicans that support for it will reduce some of the perception of them being anti-immigrant, yet without seeming to compromise on their position against illegal immigration. The Democratic Party strikes me as one that would generally be in favor of such an amendment, although there would be the risk of a Schwarzenegger campaign if they managed to oust Trump. There's also the issue that the Congress of the time is extremely partisan, and them working together on anything is rather unlikely. Still, enough supernatural and mundane greasing may be sufficient to get it through, priming Arnie for a 2020 run. I presume he wouldn't try to jump ship and join the Democrats, so there will be the oddity of someone going for a nomination in lieu of the sitting President, which will certainly be an uphill battle, but may be doable for the supernaturally-enhanced Governator. Failing that, he might be able to try for a third-party nomination of some flavor.

[Not]

He becomes a wildly successful Republican governor of California, teams up with governors Jesse Ventura of Minnesota and Carl Weathers of Louisiana to usher in a second "Era of Good Feelings," and is personally popular enough to lead a 38 state campaign to amend the Constitution while simultaneously running for president. He is so charming even his opponent votes for him (in an non-swing state).

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Getting a portion of the constitution rendered unconstitutional strikes me as a complete non-starter, so it would need to be a constitutional amendment.

The only conceivable way is an interpretation of some amendment to have already repealed the requirement. The most reasonable way is via a reading of the 14th amendment as eliminating any idea of different tiers of citizenship. "Natural born citizen" can't be a privileged class given rights beyond those of other citizens (by the same logic, age and residence requirements are probably in jeopardy).

That would almost certainly require the intervention of alien space bats and probably a few voodoo sharks, but it's about the only legal sounding argument I can think of.

[TGLS]

A semi-plausible series of events:

2008: Trolls attack McCain and Obama over the Natural-Born Citizen Clause. This makes some noise in the media. (Comment: McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone, and Obama needs no further comment)

2015: Continued nonsense of similar magnitude targets Ted Cruz (born in Calgary, Alberta), Marco Rubio and Bobby Jindal (just nonsense on those two). A bipartisan movement promoting the reform of the Natural-Born Citizen Clause emerges.

After failing to resolve the issue through the courts (see the efforts of Abdul Karim Hassan), a constitutional scholar suggests resolving the issue by applying the Enforcement Clause of the 14th Amendment (Laurence Tribe noted this in Sept 2016). The movement passes a radical version of this law that effectively eliminates the Natural-Born Citizen Clause.

Late 2010s: The law is upheld by the courts.

2019: Arnold Schwarzenegger Announces his Candidacy.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Functional change in law through judicial activism, probably going all the way to the Supreme Court?

This one is outright *impossible* - sure courts can "interpret" things in a rather strange ways on occasion, but this one is pretty clear cut. And in the wake of Bush v. Gore I can't imagine the Supreme Court would even want to get involved in something like this, even if it *weren't* such a blatant violation of the Constitution.

Or legal change through Constitutional Amendment?

That one is at least possible without triggering a civil war. Go with that. Timelines on Constitutional amendments are highly varied. In principle you could get one through in a few days should you happen to get it out of Congress and to the state legislatures at a time they are all in session. Which is never actually, though if you can get it out in February of an odd numbered year enough of them should either still be in session or open before the end of April that you could get it passed in the minimum number of states before summer, and if you have Alien Space Bats supporting you, well, many states have mechanisms for calling special sessions on only a few weeks notice. It's also possible (though it's never been done) to do it in the other order - pass it through the necessary number of state legislatures first and then take it to Congress, which may give you slightly more flexibility about timing.

Historically most amendments have taken a year or two, though the last one took 2 centuries.

[AlexanderHowl]

It would honestly be more realistic to have had Austria join the USA after WW II and have Arnold having been born an American citizen (possibly the result of a successful assassination attempt of Hitler in '39 by Elser or an earlier entry into the European theater by the USA).

[Balor Patch]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

It would honestly be more realistic to have had Austria join the USA after WW II and have Arnold having been born an American citizen (possibly the result of a successful assassination attempt of Hitler in '39 by Elser or an earlier entry into the European theater by the USA).

Or change Arnold's history so his parents were on a trip in the USA when he was born.

[Anthony]

Or the ASBs just convince people that he's actually natural born. The quantity of wide area mind control required is probably less than getting the amendment passed.