Paul Confident He Can Run For Senate And President At The Same Time

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is widely believed to be running for president in 2016 but he hasn’t announced yet and if he does run for president he has to get around Kentucky law that prohibits running for U.S. Senate and president at the same time. In an interview published Thursday, Paul hinted that there’s a way to do that.

Legal experts have said there are paths (albeit imperfect ones) of getting around the qualification law, and in an interview with Salon, Paul suggested his approach to running for both offices in 2016.

“Well, we’re definitely running for re-election for the U.S. Senate and we’ll actually have an announcement on that probably next week, but we will run for reelection,” Paul told the online magazine. “On the other, there are various possibilities that have been discussed in the media on how to do it. There’s a possibility that the Republican Party could choose to have a convention, in which case there would not be a primary ballot to be on twice, and that would overcome, really, I think, the problem there. But some of that discussion is ongoing and some of it hasn’t been finalized.”

Asked which change he favors, Paul didn’t give a direct answer.

“The Constitution set the requirements for eligibility for office that states can’t modify for federal office; they can modify for state office, but I think that’s actually a case that could be won, but it’s also just a fairness issue,” Paul said. “You know, there’s two dozen people who have run for both offices, both presidency and a local office in their state, and I think people, if they were presented with the idea of fairness, would say, you know what, why would we punish someone who’s from our state versus someone who’s from Connecticut or Wisconsin or Texas?”