What would happen if people had to pass a security clearance to Top Secret before they could run for or be appointed to national office?

SSG (Join to see) the current congress is full of people will criminal convictions. We are plagued by voters who wont take the time to learn anything about the people the vote for and might as well be voting for their favorite color for all of they thought and research that the dedicate to the issues.

Cpl Joshua Caldwell - part of the problem is the amount of miss information that is out there. How much mud is thrown around. It can be hard to find out what is really going on. We as voters need to do better.

SSG (Join to see) As voters we SUCK, we have way to many people who spend zero effort before making very important voting choices. I blame our education system, they dont teach anyone to think critically anymore, and our colleges have largely become indoctrination centers, where people who have never left school teach young adults how the system functions, as if they have any idea how anything works.

Cpl Joshua Caldwell - or any basic civics lessons. We don't teach civics sadly.

Nope, no clearance requirement for POTUS of any member of congress, you can actually be on the congressional committees that oversee homeland security, defense, intelligence and not have a clearance for any of the info about the thing your theoretically supervise. Yet a PVT with a MOS that has little access to info, does need to be cleared before he can go to his MOS school.

Cpl Joshua Caldwell - Usually new recruits investigations are not completed until after they complete the school. I know when I was in almost every single Marine that arrived out of C School had to complete paperwork for their investigation because their recruiter screwed up their SF86. They were then issued an interim security clearance until the investigation was complete. If they failed the investigation they were just sent TAD someplace that didn't require a clearance, such as training or admin, and then have to sign a non-disclosure agreement for any classified material they had been given access to.

Interesting point, I went in DEP, so I am pretty sure my clearance was ok before I arrived at PISC, as a civilian my clearance was completed before I was hired. Since you need to start campaigning about a year in advance, I suspect that they could either clear or reject applicants before the voters did anything.

SFC Bernard Walko - Remember known associates only matter if you fail to disclose, there were actions involved, you are risk of blackmail from them.

I was surprised to find out that my local congressman (a Navy Reserve Officer) did not have a clearance, and he would most likely pass. He asked a question of my agency, and we could not answer him because he didn't have the clearance. He sure had a need to know, but no clearance to back it up. He had to hire a guy with a clearance on his staff, and that guy had to give him a vote up or vote down sort of answer.