I think Congress-critters would claim that they couldn’t legally do anything until the electoral votes were opened because until then it would just be speculation. But that sure didn’t stop them from dealing with McCain speculatively, did it? Jerks.
I suppose it’s ultimately the political parties who assign the electors who do the actual voting that counts.
Which probably means the legal buck stops right there at Nancy Pelosi and Alice Travers Germond. They gave the signal for their electors to vote for Obama because they promised he was their duly nominated candidate (i.e. fulfilling all the requirements of the DNC, which includes Constitutional eligibility). In Hawaii they went even farther and personally testified outright that they knew him to be Constitutionally eligible. Liars.
The more I think about it, Congress probably could have contested the electoral vote. Those electors could have voted for Mickey Mouse, and would Congress have to certify Mickey Mouse as the electoral winner?
But I don’t think Congress could by itself determine whether Obama is a “natural born US citizen” - unless to rule him out as one because of his age, residency, or birthplace. The dual citizenship issue probably involves interpretation of the 14th Amendment and so would require a judicial ruling.
And I think the 20th Amendment provides for a situation where Congress certifies the winner but the winner still doesn’t qualify - which just about has to mean that somebody is able to bring a case and find that he failed to qualify.
The trouble is that our courts refused to hear the cases.
What a fine mess.
You know, Butter, this may sound out of topic but it isn’t.
Abu Bama isn’t running for reelection. The Quran burning threat is leveled by, as I suspected and was confirmed by a FReeper, a Democrat pastor!
Come Saturday, we’ll see what kind of chaos they are trying to start since none of their wishful thinking of violence from our side materialized.
Bottom line, 0b0z0 and his communist regime will use chaos to suspend freedoms of speech and assembly to postpone their crushing election loss indefinitely.
I pinged you on that subject and the thread couple of days ago.
Good thread. I would contribute a few general thoughts. Maybe electors should have been or should be the target of lawsuits rather than Secretaries of State, Governors or AGs for failing to vet Obama’s constitutional eligibility. Another possibility would be the leaders of any particular state’s Democratic party. Maybe this would help provide legal standing.
The other thing that would be helpful is to cite the 10th amendment, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
There is no power delegated to any specific federal body to verify the eligibility of a presidential candidate. This power would thus constitutionally fall to the state or the people, which is evidenced by the nomination forms that are turned in at the state level. If your state doesn’t specifically address presidential eligibity in its laws, then by the 10th amendment, you should legally be able to challenge any candidate or even an illegally seated president on the basis of the Constitutional eligibility requirements. IMO, this is where the Constitution gives ALL citizens standing to fight this issue in court.
Earlier you mentioned there not being a clear ruling on the meaning of natural born citizen. I disagree as Minor v. Happersett gave a very clear definition for which there is ‘no doubt.’ The important thing in any of these lawsuits would be to make sure they specifically cite the Supreme Court as providing this definition. There’s no way to argue against it because it IS very clear.
First the SCOTUS associated this term with the Constitution and with the requirement for POTUS: “This is apparent from the Constitution itself, for it provides [n6] that “no person except a natural-born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President ...” and then says, “The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their [p168] parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first. For the purposes of this case it is not necessary to solve these doubts. It is sufficient for everything we have now to consider that all children born of citizen parents within the jurisdiction are themselves citizens.”
IOW, the SCOTUS expressed doubt about any other way to define natural born citizen. The definition they used is nearly verbatim from Vattel of being born in the country to parents who are citizens. It’s important however that in a case, that one would cite the Supreme Court directly, rather than Vattel. This way, the court hearing a case can’t deny its applicability, like they did in Ankeny v. Daniels. No equal or higher ruling has altered this definition, so it would be precedential.
If that's where the votes fall, yes, that's where the votes fall. Congress can still object on the basis of failure to meet the qualifications, and find that there has been a failure on the part of the electors to elect a person qualified for the office. At that point, they follow the procedure set forth in the 12th amendment - and if the House can't elect a qualified president, well, as you say, a major housecleaning is in order.
By the way, I agree that Pelosi and the DNC are legally on the hook for testifying that Obama, a known dual citizen at birth, meets the constitutional qualifications. But I think the issue of qualification has no traction with either of the established political parties.
I find the entire federal government operation to be basically one of misdirection, dishonesty, and subterfuge. The government is irredeemably corrupt. Elections are held in order to mislead the public into believing it (the public) is under some form of self-government. It's an illusion.
I give the government respect, for the same reason I give the mafia respect. They have force of violence, and they are eager to use it to obtain submission. But neither outfit has any legitimate claim to power by the consent of the governed. The feds have violated the constitution every which way, and then they, themselves, through their own federal courts, conclude that they haven't. Too few of the people have a clue and care. The system can't collapse fast enough to suit me.