“The Electors shall meet in their respective states and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves.”

From the Twelfth Amendment

The president and vice president cannot be residents of the same state, according to the Constitution. On the other hand, a president is not supposed to sic an army of crazed cult followers into the Capitol to interrupt the Vice President counting the Electoral Votes. We have seen Trump use the Constitution as “advisory” before, and only fully believe it applies to his enemies.

Still, Floridians are asking the question, would Trump leave Florida in order to add DeSantis as a running mate. Before we get to their question and analysis, we will offer our opinion. No.

First, Trump is not going to appoint someone who perhaps sees himself as a big MAGA star, almost as big as Trump. And two, if Trump decides to add DeSantis and decides to honor the Constitution (which he won’t), he will make DeSantis leave.

It is far more likely (in our eyes) that he would make DeSantis step down as governor when named as the running mate and move to Texas, or Hawaii, or something.

But from the Tampa Bay Times:

The constitutional quirk has not received much attention in all the speculation about Trump’s future political aspirations and DeSantis’ viability as his No. 2. It certainly hasn’t stopped conservatives from dreaming of Trump joining forces with DeSantis, whose popularity among Republicans has soared in the past year. Trump-DeSantis 2024 apparel is already for sale at independent online stores.

Congressional experts seem to be in agreement that in this modern-day and age the requirement seems out of date:

“Whether or not the requirement that you vote for someone other than someone from your state makes sense today, and it probably doesn’t, the text is clear,” said Vikram Amar, dean of the University of Illinois College of Law and a professor of constitutional law. “It’s pretty anachronistic, but there it is, part of the text.”

Do you know what else is out of date? Having the Vice-President stand before Congress and read the Electoral College Votes as he opens the envelope like the Oscars, except we know the winner ahead of time. But that didn’t stop Trump last time and we don’t see why it would this time.

They actually can run together, it is just that Florida’s votes wouldn’t count and that is a large number of electoral college votes, as we all learned in 2000.

But Florida’s representatives to the Electoral College could not vote for Trump to be president and DeSantis to be vice president. That means one of them — most likely DeSantis — would have to forgo the state’s 30 Electoral College votes in 2024, jeopardizing his chances and potentially turning the election of the vice president over to a hyper-politicized U.S. Congress.

Now we are confused.

But here is what is clear to us. Trump is not going to run with DeSantis because DeSantis seems a little too aggressive in his attempted climb up the ladder. Trump will look for a Mike Pence, a lap dog with very little chance for a real career.
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