Barnett wrote that as a contributor to the Volokh Conspiracy, a libertarian/conservative web site. It in no way means that WaPo agrees with them. I used to comment there for years until they made a deal with WaPo to host them and now you have to subscribe.

Who would have standing to make a court challenge if a major political party seems bound and determined to nominate someone who probably isn’t an eligible citizen under the Constitution?

I think the answer should be ANY AMERICAN has standing because every American is entitled to the protection against not-yet-mature or potentially non-loyal government officials where the Constitution sets requirements for such officials.

By way of example, assume that Massachusetts voters elected an eight (8) year old Syrian refugee to be one of its two US senators.

We know that Article 1, Section 3, Clause 3 of the Constitution requires that to be a senator a person shall “have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States and . . . when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.”

We also know that even one vote can make the difference between an act of major consequence being enacted by Congress or being defeated. (See the Cornhusker kickback.)

I, a California resident, should have standing to obtain court protection, under the provisions of the Constitution, against the voters of Massachusetts getting such an unqualified person into the US Senate.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/01/07/why-ted-cruz-is-a-natural-born-citizen/

Without researching it, I’d say off the top of my head that no, that would not work at all, because public figures running in a campaign cannot sue their opponents for defamation. If that were allowed, we’d have no end of lawsuits. In general, public figures can’t sue for defamation unless they prove something called “actual malice” (which has many elements necessary and is ordinarily extremely hard to prove), and certainly that would extend to campaigns.

I actually still think that it is too speculative. I don’t think anyone has a cause of action at this point—but it has been suggested by others that Trump would, so I have discussed it. Notice that in the post I wrote that Trump might have standing (accent on the “might”), and also “if he does have standing (and it is by no means certain that he does).” These phrases express my doubt about the fact that he would have standing.

In addition, I wrote in the post that in order for the lawsuit to be entertained a person would need standing and an actual dispute (that’s where the “too speculative” objection would come in for Trump, at this point, when it’s still too speculative to be an actual dispute that has injured him).

Lastly, you might notice that in Keyes v. Bowen, the lawsuit against Obama et. al. was only brought after the election was over—right after it was over, actually. That was no accident, either. Beforehand, it would probably have been thrown out, even though the plaintiff Keyes was an opponent of Obama’s in the presidential election.

So I don’t really think Trump or anyone else could sue at this point. The conclusion I have come to in the post is that I think that only Congress could decide to make a candidate ineligible and that decision and ruling would come after the fact of an election. Or, a political party could do it by not nominating that person in the first place. Or of course the voters could do it by rejecting that person in the voting booth. I don’t think the courts would get involved.

Of course, I could be wrong about that. But if Trump wants to find out, he could file a suit and see.