[Jeff Winston]

Jeff, as you well know, the Framers set the bar for members of Congress lower than those for the office of President, which is the ONLY office which has the Natural Born Citizen requirement.

But by YOUR argument... well, it's the members of Congress who actually make our laws.

Wouldn't we want those who MAKE OUR LAWS to have the highest form of allegiance possible to our nation? Would we want those who MAKE OUR LAWS to have any kind of divided allegiance with some other country?

Wouldn't we want them to only be born on US soil of citizen parents?

So certainly, the Founding Fathers must have passed some requirement that only people who were born on US soil to US citizen parents could be elected members of Congress.

But they didn't.

[Windflier]

Would we want those who MAKE OUR LAWS to have any kind of divided allegiance with some other country? Wouldn't we want them to only be born on US soil of citizen parents?

Jeff, the legislative branch consists of hundreds of elected officers. The executive branch (for all intents and purposes) consists of just one man.

It doesn't take a genius to see why the qualifications for congressional offices wouldn't be quite as restrictive than they would be for the one and only highest office in the land.

A single, or even a handful of congressmen with divided loyalties, would be kept in check by the allegiances of their fellow congressmen. Who's going to keep a President in check?

The proof that the Framers thought this through (and came to the same conclusion) is written in the various qualifications for office in the Constitution. The Framers were meticulous and deliberate in crafting that document. Logic, reason, and history guided them in that task.