Statutes limiting the right of a person to hold office are to be given a liberal construction in favor of those seeking to hold office in order that the public may have the benefit of choice from all those who are in fact and in law qualified. Ambiguities should be resolved in favor of eligibility to office, and constitutional and statutory provisions which restrict the right to hold public office should be strictly construed against ineligibility.
67 C.J.S. Officers § 23 (2012) (footnotes omitted) (emphasis added); cf. 62 C.J.S. § 273 (2011) (“[A]n appointed or elected person should not be prevented from taking office unless clearly ineligible.” (emphasis added)); see also CASES OF CONTROVERTED ELECTIONS, DETERMINED IN COMMITTEES OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, IN THE SECOND PARLIAMENT OF THE REIGN OF QUEEN VICTORIA 587 (Thomas Falconer & Edward H. Fitzherbert eds., London, Saunders & Benning 1839) (reproducing committee debate from disputed Galway election of 1838, where Mr. Austin (counsel for the sitting member who prevailed) stated: “In all cases respecting eligibility, eligibility is to be aided, and ineligibility ought to be strictly proved. Severe penalties are imposed by the acts of parliament creating disqualification, and they are not favoured.”); cf. Jordan Steiker, Sanford Levinson & Jack M. Balkin, Taking Text and Structure Really Seriously: Constitutional Interpretation and the Crisis of Presidential Eligibility, 74 Tex. L. Rev. 237, 242ff (1995) (noting several textual difficulties in regard to President Washington's eligibility, including his purportedly being a resident of the United States for 14 years in 1789, when he took office).
Posted at 11:26 PM