I’m just your average middle-class suburban I.T. professional…who’s tired of how badly off-kilter the United States of America has gotten. I believe very deeply in human rights, federalism, and balanced budgets, and I’m fighting to make those ideas the foundation of our system of government once again.
I’ve been saying I was going to run for president in 2020 since high school, when I worked out that it would be the first presidential election after I would turn thirty-five (the age of eligibility). I even put a campaign ad in my school paper.
I graduated from Liberty High School in Bedford, Virginia, and hold a Bachelor of Science degree in Public Administration from George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. I am married to a jewelry artist and graphic designer who operates her own small business. We have no children, two cats, and a dog. We are practicing Roman Catholics.
My career has taken me from part-time media assistant at a nonprofit, to five years with a federal I.T. contractor supporting projects at the Department of Defense and the Department of the Treasury, then to a web development position at a technology and e-commerce company. In my spare time, I write for Scott Bradford: Off on a Tangent, write software, go shooting, patch-up my 1977 Jeep J-10 pickup, and snark about politics.
I believe that we can disagree about the issues — strongly — but still respect one another. I believe that politicians should decide how to vote by using use their heads and reading the U.S. Constitution, not by blindly following their party whip or chasing the next election win.
Constitutional Eligibility
The U.S. Constitution establishes the eligibility requirements for the president. There are several relevant clauses:
No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
Article II, Section 1, Clause 5
Judgment in Cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States….
Article I, Section 3, Clause 7
No person shall…hold any office, civil or military, under the United States…, who, having previously taken an oath…to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Amendments, Article XIV, Clause 3
No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once….
Amendment XXII, Clause 1
These may be summarized as saying that, to be elected president, a person must:
- Be a natural born citizen of the United States (or become a citizen before September 17, 1787)
- Be at least thirty-five years old before the date of the swearing-in
- Be an inhabitant of the United States for at least fourteen years
- Not be disqualified by the U.S. Senate following conviction in an impeachment case
- Not have rebelled against the United States after having sworn an oath to support the Constitution
- Not have been previously elected president more than twice (or more than once if served as president or acting president for at least two years of somebody else’s term)
I affirm that I am a natural born citizen of the United States. I was born in Key West, Florida. Under both the U.S. Constitution (Amendments, Article XIV, Clause 1) and the United States Code (8 USC §1401, Clause A), being born in the United States while subject to its jurisdiction makes one a citizen from birth.
I affirm that I am at least thirty-five years old. I was born in 1982, and turned thirty-five in 2017.
I affirm that I have been an inhabitant of the United States for at least fourteen years. I have lived in the United States without interruption since birth.
I affirm that I have never been convicted in an impeachment case, have never rebelled against the United States, and have never previously been elected president.