DSA Just Said It Out Loud – Strike Down Constitutional Ban on Foreign Presidents, Get Mamdani in the White House
A democratic socialist podcast host called for his party to make amending the Constitution a top priority so that New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani can make a bid for the White House.
“DSA should push for a constitutional amendment so naturalized citizens can run for President. Then we do what’s so clearly in front of us: Zohran Mamdani / Melat Kiros ticket,” Deep Singh Badhesha posted on social media on Saturday.
Kiros is the DSA candidate who defeated 15-term incumbent Rep. Diana DeGette for Colorado’s 1st congressional district last month.
Her victory came amid a sweep of Mamdani-endorsed candidates in New York the previous week, who ousted two incumbent Democrats, including Rep. Dan Goldman, and won a third primary in which the incumbent did not seek re-election.
Thankfully, for the cause of liberty in the United States, it is difficult to pass a constitutional amendment.
It requires a two-thirds vote in both the Senate and the House. And then three-fourths of the state legislatures must approve it, as well.
Article II, Section 1, Clause 5, listing qualifications for president, states, “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.”
Mamdani, 34, was born in Uganda, and Kiros, 29, in Ethiopia, so neither is qualified to be president. If the DSA were looking to make this happen by 2028, Kiros also would not meet the 35-year-old minimum age requirement for a vice president either. Mamdani just became a U.S. citizen in 2018.
The reason the founders put the native-born requirement in the Constitution is “to ensure that the President’s loyalties would lie strictly with the United States,” according to the annotated Constitution on Congress.gov.