Posted on 01/14/2011 9:44:51 AM PST by butterdezillion
After much input and thought, this is the eligibility bill I am finally asking people to lobby their state legislators to pass.
Features of this bill:
And we have the experience of what has happened in the last presidential election which also illuminates why this kind of law is necessary. I would be happy to summarize some of those experiences to any lawmaker who doesn’t know the history involved.
Ultimately, this is not really about Obama though. It is about creating a system where the will of the Constitution is implemented fairly and with due process by bureaucrats who are held accountable to both truthfulness and the rule of law. In addition, there are aspiring leaders who will need to know what the Constitution means for their particular situation, as they consider what path to take; this law would be for their good as well as for the good of the country. That is the real focus of this bill. This is not meant to favor or punish any person or group, but to allow a transparent and accountable process with input from all sides at every point in the process, so the nation can get the rules it needs and commence to play the game fairly for all.
All that being said, I appreciate any help I can get in presenting this to legislators in as many states as possible. It will be helpful to know who is covering what, so if somebody intends to work on this in a given state, it would be great to get a note to that effect so I know how to best spend my time and energy. Everybody is welcomed and even encouraged to print out this description and/or the proposed bill itself to pass on to lawmakers, neighbors, or whoever.
Thanks! Nellie Final Short Form Eligibility Bill
A Bill Requiring Documentation of Presidential Eligibility for Candidates Available to Electoral Voters
Whereas the US Constitution makes states responsible to choose Presidential electors and the Congressional Research Service has concluded that “there is no specific federal agency or office that “vets” candidates for federal office as to qualifications or eligibility prior to election. The mechanics of elections of federal officials within the several states are administered under state law.”,
Whereas the only security clearance given to the Commander-in-Chief is the vote of the people, who do not individually have authority to demand documentation necessary for such a security clearance;
Whereas the US Constitution says, “No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States”; and
Whereas the US Constitution gives the US judiciary both jurisdiction and responsibility to decide in law and fact all controversies and cases arising from the Constitution, including US Supreme Court original jurisdiction for cases in which a State is a party,
Therefore be it resolved that:
Before being placed on a ballot, a candidate for President or Vice-President must state his/her name and place of birth and parents’ names, provide proof of being a US resident for 14 years, and sign a consent form for the Secretary of State to receive certified copies of all his/her birth records and all his/her and his/her parents’ citizenship records – including all written and embedded transaction logs for all records.
The Secretary of State must secure all said records, redact information to comply with state and FOIA privacy provisions, and post scans of the documents to the Secretary of State’s website. Redacted originals must be made available for public viewing.
The Secretary of State must also complete and post to the SOS website a list saying whether the records confirm that the candidate was born in the United States to 2 US citizen parents, will be at least 35 by the start of the Presidential term, and has been a US resident for 14 years, and show no discrepancies in transaction logs that call into question the veracity or legal validity of the records.
If any of these conditions is not met, if any above procedure is not completed, or if any person contests the eligibility of the candidate within 30 days after both the documents and the list are posted to the website, the Secretary of State shall deny placement on the ballot unless and until the judiciary, with all appeals exhausted, rules the candidate eligible. The State AG shall submit to the court any amicus briefs from the public in any lawsuits concerning the implementation or constitutionality of this law.
If a lawsuit is filed with the state judiciary, the case shall be heard and decided on an expedited basis.
This law shall be in effect as soon as it is signed by the governor. If a provision of this bill is or becomes illegal, invalid or unenforceable in any jurisdiction, that shall not affect:
1. the validity or enforceability in that jurisdiction of any other provision of this bill; or
2. the validity or enforceability in other jurisdictions of that or any other provision of this bill.
Ping. My mind is fried so if you know of somebody else to ping, please do.
I think this is where the research rubber hits the road. If we can’t translate what we know into some real legal change then we’ve sort of wasted our time. At least that’s how it feels to me. As with healthcare reform, the states are our last hope to keep America even vaguely in compliance with the Constitution.
I would add a couple of lines so that there is no blurring of intent and eliminate any and all ‘loopholes’:
This law should also apply to any sitting president who seeks reelection. Since this bill has been updated and with stricter rules, any and all evidence of his eligibility previously supplied by the sitting president, will be set aside and he shall be required to resubmit new, in depth, documents asserting his eligbility.
In addition, the chosen running mate of the president shall undergo the same requirements as the president as stated in this bill.
Copied, pasted, and emailed to my political activism list, with link back to your blog post.
Good work.
Bookmarked. I can see you’ve been very, very busy. Good work!
Do you think it would work just to add in the phrase “including incumbents”, which would apply to both Pres candidates and VPres candidates?
Thank you. Now the hard work of finding people to push for this comes in.
I am a social moron so this is the intrepidating part of the job. I write better than I speak in person and I’m shy. I have no qualifications that would get a lawmaker’s attention and my husband would REALLY like me to stay anonymous if possible.
So I’m going to need a lot of help from people who have connections, or qualifications, or the kind of outgoing personality to move this forward.
The more people we can get to help out with this, the better, because the “people part” is definitely not my forte.
Thank you. As I said to Satin Doll, the people part is not my forte so we’re going to need all the movers and shakers we can find to do this. Anybody who’s with a local Tea Party group who might be able to get others on board, this is really your time to shine. It’s my turn to need you and lean on you. I hope and pray we have the people who can do this.
[“including incumbents”,]
It probably would, what I was try to do is be VERY explicit because lawyers will be going over every line looking for ways to get out of complying.
Personally, I would like to see this Federal Law rather than just State Law or a combination of both. We need to do everything possible to get our country back.
The Federal government has the power to inflict punishment to the sates when they ‘get out of hand’.
Your post was excellent and needs to be enacted to start on the road to reinstalling our Republic based on the Constitution.
Personally, I’m going to contact my Senator, Jim DeMint, to see if he could help. He is a good man who isn’t shy about talking about the dangers this administration poses for the Republic.
You are not alone so keep the faith.
Excellent! Will be working on getting this out there.
Put this in your emails to friends and family to get the message out. The more hands working on this the better.
I had a longer bill drafted that sought to be more specific in the procedures, so there would be absolutely no loopholes. Like you, I noticed that the lawyers look for ways to slice and dice so they can worm their way out of a law actually meaning anything concrete.
The feedback I got was that lawmakers wouldn’t have the patience to go over something that tedious. So I shortened it to include almost all that I had.
It’s quite a balancing act.
One of the things that most concerns me is whether or not the people have a way to hold the bureaucrats, courts, lawmakers, etc accountable to the rule of law. It might seem like this bill is just about eligibility but it really has a lot more to do with the rule of law, and the ability of the people to hold government at ALL LEVELS accountable.
I’m not sure what role the federal government has, according to the Constitution. I’ve struggled over that a lot, as different people have said that Congress can contest eligibility when it counts the electoral votes. Only the courts can interpret and apply the Constitution, so if Congress was going to take up the issue of eligibility the only way they could Constitutionally do it would be by filing a case in the courts and letting the courts decide it.
There’s no question that the states are supposed to choose Presidential electors, so the states are probably the clearest route for enforcing eligibility requirements, although the ultimate interpretation of the Constitution always has to be done by the judiciary. I think this bill would make sure the Constitution is honored and obeyed in that way.
Excellent! Thank you.
He may not be able to do anything at the federal level but maybe he would be willing to help contact state legislators. I don’t have the gravitas to get state legislators to listen to me, but if we can convince great people to support this they can lend their endorsement and together we can do great things.
We probably have some people here on FR who have a lot of influence, and if we can get their support we can do this.
This is really a common-sense response to the problems we’ve recognized these past 2 years. Congress-critters were asking the CRS for guidance on this so they know there are problems with the way it is now, with nobody having a route for documentation to actually be required. And this bill wouldn’t have the vulnerability that opponents said the AZ bill had - that a state SOS is interpreting the Constitution, which only the judiciary can do.
The complaint that one lawyer had with this was the 2-citizen parent requirement, but by putting that in there it requires the courts to address the definition of “natural born citizen”, which is a prerequisite to an SOS being able to know who is eligible or not.
So there’s no reason for notable people to NOT support a bill like this. And if we can get their endorsements it can help us get state legislators to at least consider this.
Bump. I’ll give it a look. :-)
1. If a candidate's parent(s) are still alive, they can deny access to their own birth certificate, thus denying the candidate those records. In which way would this be legal, since the Constitution doesn't allow for it?
2. Assuming that the transaction log section of your law passed muster (which is doubtful), what if the transaction logs didn't exist at the time the records were generated, or were lost or destroyed? Are you going to make the candidate responsible for something entirely outside his/her control?
3. Where in the Constitution does it say that one's parents must provide or prove their places of birth? Or that the candidate is responsible for the state's record-keeping system, something over which he/she has no legal control or right to see?
4. Since certified birth records from one state are recognized by all other states, where do you get the right to demand more (the transaction records) from? What if the other state's laws don't allow for sharing of those records?
B. If any of these conditions is not met, if any above procedure is not completed, or if any person contests the eligibility of the candidate within 30 days after both the documents and the list are posted to the website, the Secretary of State shall deny placement on the ballot unless and until the judiciary, with all appeals exhausted, rules the candidate eligible. The State AG shall submit to the court any amicus briefs from the public in any lawsuits concerning the implementation or constitutionality of this law.
1.That means that if would take 50-some people (assuming one per state & Washington, DC, plus 1 for every territory with voting rights*) to force a candidate to litigate in every single state, plus all of the far-flung territories. You've just assured that only the most wealthy candidates can possibly attempt a run for national office.
2. It also means that any opponent on either side (since all of this is taking place before the primaries) can prevent anyone they like from qualifying for the ballot unless they spend an arm and a leg for no real reason whatsoever other than the fact that people complained.
C.If a lawsuit is filed with the state judiciary, the case shall be heard and decided on an expedited basis.
1.Who gets to decide what "expedited" means?
2.Who pays for the defendant's (i.e., the candidate's) legal costs if he/she can't afford them?
3.What if a SoS is a member of the opposite party or a friend of one of the other candidates in the primary, and decides to slow down the process and causes the candidate in question to miss the deadline?
4.If 100 people file objections based on 100 different reasons, are there 100 cases to litigate, or 1 or what?
Essentially, you seem to be demanding rights (the right to other state's record keeping, for example) that appear no where in the constitution and which have never been recognized anywhere else.
Also, you're ignoring the fact that birth records are considered prima facie evidence and need nothing to back them up . See: Mills v. Duryee http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a4_1s10.html
* If I recall correctly, the territories are allowed to vote in the primaries and send delegates to the conventions, but do not vote in the general election).
The beauty of this bill, mountainbunny, is that the Supreme Court gets to decide the answer to all your questions. Is there somebody else you think should do that?
I believe I’ve addressed concerns about challenges taking time and money - giving the candidate the option of filing suit with the state judiciary (State Supreme Court), which appeals directly to SCOTUS so that time and money are kept in check as much as possible. You’re never going to get a process which delivers justice without there being any cost or time involved.
I’ve put in as many measures as Constitutionally possible to create accountability that would keep the politics of the AG, SOS, and bureaucratic workers from being able to derail justice. When the government HAS to be transparent and when the people have a procedure whereby they can hold government accountable BETWEEN ELECTIONS, the cockroaches are a lot less willing to be their corrupt selves.
What this bill has is a darn site better than anything we currently have. It’s not perfect, since nothing can be - but it would definitely make it a lot LESS likely that an activist political hack in the position of AG, SOS, or DOH director would be able to run roughshod over the people and the rule of law.
But it does remind me that maybe one more thing is in order: a statement giving any person standing to sue any government entity for failing to obey this law.
If it’s illegal for transaction logs to be examined in order to determine the integrity of the records, then audits of state records are illegal. I have to question the sanity of any state that makes audits of state records illegal. The ONLY thing the transaction logs would reflect is the integrity of the office keeping the records - which is the rightful reason that states have open records laws. And this bill would require information to be redacted in compliance with disclosure laws so there would be no conflict there.
One state’s law only applies in that state. Anybody can challenge eligibility, and the SOS has to leave the name off the ballot unless and until the courts (ultimately the US Supreme Court) finds that the candidate is eligible. One lawsuit. That’s a darn sight better than what we’ve had. The only people who shouldn’t like that are the lawyers who would rather make money off of this issue than get the real answers the country needs.
GENUINE birth records which are legally valid are prima facie evidence. Falsified records are not. If there was no measure to show whether or not the records had been falsified you would have people challenge eligibility on the basis of potentially falsified records anyway, which would send the case to court, and any court would have authority to check whether a record had been falsified. Having the proof of the record not being falsified would just eliminate the challenges where the record is obviously clean. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
And why would ANY TRUSTWORTHY GOVERNMENT AGENCY balk at the chance to display their integrity for everyone to see? Who could possibly speak against doing that?
This article http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=107200 notes that the federal government caught a NJ DOH director falsifying records so that illegal aliens could have supposed proof of American citizenship, and the federal government 5 years later still doesn’t accept birth certificates from there as proof to issue passports.
The issue of presidential eligibility is a federal issue because it is governed by the US Constitution. If the Passport Office can require more documentation for passports where fabrication of vital records is an issue, then why should a state implementing the federal requirement of the US Constitution be any different?
I just wanted to address the fact that falsified documents are not required to be considered ample proof of everything on that document.
And there is no limit as to what documents one state can request or require from another state. The Full Faith and Credit Clause of the US Constitution says:
“Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and Judicial Proceedings of every other State; And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.”
I don’t have the link for it right now but have read the companion law that was passed saying that the manner that acts, records, and proceedings are proven genuine is by a seal and signature of a certifying official.
There is nothing in the Constitution that forbids one state from getting the transaction logs from another state. If that transaction log is “proved” according to the standards set by Congress, then the requesting state needs to give full faith and credit to it. This bill requires that the candidate give permission for the SOS to receive certified copies of everything including the transaction logs, and for the SOS to get precisely that.
So the transaction logs would have to be certified, and all the Full Faith and Credit Clause (Art III, Sec 1) of the Constitution requires is that the requesting state give full faith and credit to it then, accepting it as genuine.
Different states have different requirements as to what documentation is required to prove a claim. For instance, in one state a COLB may be good enough to prove a particular claim on the COLB, but that might not be enough to prove it in another state - even though that state gives full faith and credit to Hawaii’s COLB, as far as it goes. It just might not go far enough.
For instance, there are states that might consider a COLB from Hawaii to be enough documentation for a person’s race. But Hawaii’s OWN Dept of Hawaiian Homelands requires MORE documentation than just a COLB, even though it accepts the genuineness of its own COLB’s. It currently requires a COLB AND additional documentation. Previously they required a long-form COLB; now they say a COLB is OK (since they’re pretending that’s all they will print), but they’ll have to do more digging to get the additional documentation needed if only a COLB is submitted.
So basically, the states are able to say what documentation they need as proof of a specific claim, and the Constitution does not forbid that.
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