U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio remains one of the top contenders to serve as Donald Trump’s running mate, but the Florida man has yet to address head-on a potential hurdle for the job: a constitutional provision that says electors cannot vote for both a president and a vice president from the same state.
In an interview with CNN following Thursday’s presidential debate, Rubio skirted a question on whether he would move out of Florida if he were to be picked as Trump’s running mate to comply with a clause in the 12th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution dealing with the residency provision.
“Oh, that’s still in there?” Rubio said, laughing. He refused to confirm whether he would move, saying that he hasn’t been offered the job.
Rubio said it would be “presumptuous” to assume he would get the nod — but he said he believes Trump might make a decision within the next couple of weeks. Rubio, who campaigned against Trump for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, is in the mix. Numerous reports have stated that U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio and Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota are as well.
“The job has not been offered to me,” Rubio said. “I am not the presidential choice right now, no one is a presidential choice. No one is right now. We’ll cross bridges when we get to them.”
Under a clause in the 12th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, electors cannot vote for both a president and vice president from their own state. If Trump and Rubio were on the same ticket, they wouldn’t be able to take Florida’s 30 presidential electors unless one of them changes their state of residency.
If selected to fill the VP slot, Rubio would be the first Hispanic candidate on a major party’s presidential ticket, as a Miami native and son of working-class Cuban immigrants.
But this would not be the first time that a president and a vice president would be running together for the White House, despite being resident from the same state. For instance, during the 2000 presidential election, then-Republican candidate and Texas Gov. George W. Bush picked Dick Cheney as his running mate.
Since they were both residents from Texas, Cheney changed his state of residency to Wyoming just days before Bush chose him for the ticket. Cheney had previously served as a congressman for that state.
Trump is expected to name his running mate within the next two or three weeks, with the Republican National Convention kicking off on July 15.
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