Well, listen to you. Congress did indeed issue a statement, which in their world, is a ruling.
And that is another false statement. Congress issued no statement. Congress is incompetent to issue a ruling on the matter.
Now, go off somewhere and split hairs with someone else.
Find and post your fictional statement/ruling by Congress.
And that statement ratified what was generally understood about natural born citizenship for hundreds of years in the United States.
Aside from your statement/ruling of Congress being imaginary, the Resolution of the Senate was a pile of hot air.
The Senate has no such power, and your statement is false. Natural born citizenship has always been acquired in one of two ways. Birth in the United States while subject to its jurisdiction is the primary way. Birth outside the United States while meeting all the terms and conditions of the Federal statute applicable at the time of birth is the other way. Obtaining a Resolution from the Senate is not a recognized way. For some reason the Resolution of the Senate says nothing of the applicable Federal law.
https://www.congress.gov/110/bills/sres511/BILLS-110sres511ats.pdf
110TH CONGRESS
2D SESSIONS. RES. 511
Recognizing that John Sidney McCain, III, is a natural born citizen
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
APRIL 10, 2008
Mrs. MCCASKILL (for herself, Mr. LEAHY, Mr. OBAMA, Mr. COBURN, Mrs. CLINTON, and Mr. WEBB ) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the JudiciaryAPRIL 24, 2008
Reported by Mr. LEAHY , without amendmentAPRIL 30, 2008
Considered and agreed to_______________________
RESOLUTION
Recognizing that John Sidney McCain, III, is a natural born citizen.
Whereas the Constitution of the United States requires that, to be eligible for the Office of the President, a person must be a “natural born Citizen” of the United States;
Whereas the term “natural born Citizen”, as that term appears in Article II, Section 1, is not defined in the Constitution of the United States;
Whereas there is no evidence of the intention of the Framers or any Congress to limit the constitutional rights of children born to Americans serving in the military nor to prevent those children from serving as their country’s President;
Whereas such limitations would be inconsistent with the purpose and intent of the “natural born Citizen” clause of the Constitution of the United States, as evidenced by the First Congress’s own statute defining the term “natural born Citizen”;
Whereas the well-being of all citizens of the United States is preserved and enhanced by the men and women who are assigned to serve our country outside of our national borders;
Whereas previous presidential candidates were born outside of the United States of America and were understood to be eligible to be President; and
Whereas John Sidney McCain, III, was born to American citizens on an American military base in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That John Sidney McCain, III, is a “natural born Citizen” under Article II, Section 1, of the Constitution of the United States.
Paragraphs 1, 2, and 3 are easy to agree with, but establish nothing. There is no evidence that somebody's interpretation of the intentions of the Framers was ratified. A lack of evidence is not evidence.
Paragraph 4 is irrelevant. It refers to the statute of 1790 rather than the statute applicable to the birth of John McCain. It does so to avoid what was wrong with the statute in effect in 1936.
Paragraph 5 says nothing relevant.
Paragraph 6 refers to other candidates born under different circumstances than being born in Panama under the law effective in 1936. It says nothing specific to John McCain.
Paragraph 7 says John McCain was born on a military base in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936.
That's not a hair being split. That is deliberately misleading the American people.
https://fam.state.gov/FAM/08FAM/08FAM030101.html#M301_1_4
8 FAM 301.1-3 NOT INCLUDED IN THE MEANING OF "IN THE UNITED STATES"
c. Birth on U.S. military base outside of the United States or birth on U.S. embassy or consulate premises abroad:(1) Despite widespread popular belief, U.S. military installations abroad and U.S. diplomatic or consular facilities abroad are not part of the United States within the meaning of the 14th Amendment. A child born on the premises of such a facility is not born in the United States and does not acquire U.S. citizenship by reason of birth;
FAM is the Foreign Affairs Manual for the State Department. They are the ones who actually do make determinations of citizenship for births abroad. Birth on a military installation is irrelevant.
John McCain said in his autobiography he was born in the U.S. Naval Hospital on the Naval Air Station in the Panama Canal Zone. McCain was not born in 1936 in a hospital that opened in 1942. Nor was he born in an imaginary hospital on the nearby submarine base. Canal Zone records do not reflect the birth of John McCain. McCain never publicly produced a birth certificate.
Most likely he was born in the hospital just outside the base gate in Colon, Panama. But that would clash with the autobiography, the fake story pushed for decades.
https://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblawg/files/hr_751303.pdf
House of Representatives
75th Congress, 1st Session
Report No. 1303CITIZENSHIP OF CERTAIN CLASSES OF PERSONS BORN IN THE CANAL ZONE OR REPUBLIC OF PANAMA
[...]
Frances Perkins
Department of Labor
Office of the Secretary
March 2, 1937[...]
Owing to the view that the Canal Zone is not an incorporated territory of the United States, hence not "a part of" or "in" the United States, there is doubt that any of the persons described in the bill are citizens of the United States under the Constitution or any existing statutes even though the Canal Zone is under the jurisdiction of the United States. For the same reason it is doubtful that children born in the Republic of Panama are citizens though their parents are employed by the Government of the United States. Yet they owe allegiance to the United States and are citizens in every sense except as a matter of law.
Inside the Canal Zone was within the jurisdiction of the United States, but outside its territory. The Zone was the sovereign territory of Panama. Outside the Zone was outside the territory and outside the jurisdiction of the United States, and was covered by the applicable statute. The statute in effect in 1936 applied to all born outside the territory and jurisdiction of the United States. It was a collosal congressional screwup, and the law is what Congress actually wrote, not what they intended. Until the statute was amended in 1937, births in the Zone fell under neither 14A nor the statute. A new statute retroactively granted U.S. citizenship to those born under the defective statute. And so McCain retroactively became a citizen when he was eleven months old.
https://www.loc.gov/item/usrep366308/
Montana v. Kennedy, 366 U.S. 308, 311-312 (1961)
Held: Petitioner is not a citizen of the United States. Pp. 309-315.(a) R. S. § 2172, granting inherited citizenship to children born abroad of parents who "now are, or have been," citizens, applies only to children whose parents were citizens on or before April 14, 1802, when its predecessor became effective. When petitioner was born in 1906, R. S. § 1993 provided the sole source of inherited citizenship for foreign-born children, and it applied only to children whose fathers were citizens. Pp. 309-312.
[...]
In 1854, Horace Binney, one of the country's leading lawyers and a recognized authority on the immigration laws, published an article entitled "The Alienigenae of the United States" in which he argued that the words "who now are, or have been" in the 1802 predecessor of R.S. § 2172 had the effect of granting citizenship to the foreign-born children only of persons who were citizens of the United States on or before the effective date of the 1802 statute (April 14, 1802), in other words, that the statute had no prospective application. Foreign-born children of persons who became American citizens between April 14, 1802 and 1854, were aliens, Mr. Binney argued. In 1855, Congress responded to the situation by enacting the predecessor (10 Stat. 604) of R.S. § 1993. The provision had retroactive, as well as prospective, effect, but was clearly intended to apply only to children of citizen fathers.
“Aside from your statement/ruling of Congress being imaginary, the Resolution of the Senate was a pile of hot air.”
You must be dumb as a box of rocks.
I said in my post that it doesn’t matter if it is toothless. I just don’t care. I don’t depend on that statement. Can you comprehend what I am saying? I do not give a damn about that statement. Don’t tell me again it is non-binding. I know that. I don’t care. It is beside the point.
The idea of what a natural born citizen does not hinge at all upon what the Senate said or will say. The Congress cannot amend the Constitution.
What matters is that they felt the need to declare John McCain eligible for office, because of the historical understanding of the term “natural born citizen.”
Now, look me straight in the eyes and hear again what I said — The point is not that the statement has no legal or otherwise power. Again, I care not at all. That was not my point. My point is that they felt the need to address the natural born citizenship clause in the Constitution.
Now, the fact that the Constitution does not define what a natural born citizen is, is irrelevant and deceptive by the Senate. The Constitution does not define ANY of its terms. The writers used legal terminology extant at that time and all of it is still in use today. That does not make what is in contained therein have no meaning whatsoever.
The fact that the writers listed only three qualifications for the most most important individual office in the land means they meant something about their three points. In that day, and all through history, everyone knew what a natural born citizen is. It was defined precisely in the Naturalization Act of 1790.
I was taught all through school and college the meaning of the term.
Posters on this site who know much more about it than I do have given legal documentation for it from early on in our history.