SR511 has nothing to do with Obama, so I don’t CARE. However, a Senate Resolution is not law. Unfortunately, lying birthers sometimes bring it up to support their argument that a NBC requires 2 citizen parents. Thank you for arguing they are wrong to do so.
“Why would a court use a case that had nothing whatsoever to do with determining the NBC status of the person before them when they could have used a case that had the very definition of NBC in its holding?”
Because you have it backwards. The dicta in BOTH Minor & WKA address NBC, with Minor saying ‘we all agree on x and we don’t need to think about y’, and WKA saying, ‘we need to determine y now’.
The dicta in WKA goes into great detail on what NBC means. The formal RULING did not, because it was not required for the case - just as the RULING in Minor does not in any way discuss the meaning of NBC, but only says voting is not a right of all Americans.
Neither case gave a formal ruling on NBC, because neither case involved a person running for President. However, the dicta in Minor was one sentence, while in WKA it was most of the decision. And the court in Ankeny used the argument in WKA to determine that Obama was, if born in the USA, a NBC.
So now let me ask you this...don't you find it comical that the Senate is going to have to create a non-binding resolution with no force of law behind it every time this issue comes up instead of following the existing law?
“The dicta in WKA goes into great detail on what NBC means.”
I disagree.
According to Minor v Happersett:
x=NBC=born in country with 2 citizen parents
y=non-NBC=born in country to alien or foreigner parents
We know that y=non-NBC because the Minor court explicitly DISTINGUISHED them from x=NBC.
IMO, the NBC definition in Minor is a holding that is a finding of fact that the court relied on to determine what class of citizen Mrs. Minor belonged to. Then and only then, could the court determine whether that NBC class had an inherent right to vote as a conclusion of law.
IMO, the dicta in WKA explores the y=non-NBC class that the Minor court distinguished but could not reach to determine whether WKA was in a portion of that y=non-NBC class that was entitled to citizenship at birth on US soil even with alien or foreigner parent.
The extensive exploration comparing US citizenship, including NBC and NBS was all directed at evaluating the y=non-NBC class boundaries and whether WKA fell within those boundaries. The WKA court was NOT trying to change or expand the x=NBC definition previously held and distinguished in a way that obviously excluded WKA.
After the extensive ruminations by Gray on US citizen compared to UK subject and the 14A meaning of “subject to the jurisdiction of,” Gray's majority placed numerous qualifiers on their conclusion of law that WKA was a citizen based on their finding of fact that WKA was in a class of y=non-NBC persons entitled to be citizens at birth under the 14A. The WKA majority was able to “reach” WKA and extend citizenship at birth to him, but only within the qualifiers. The WKA majority did NOT declare WKA to be a natural born citizen but only as much a citizen as a natural born citizen.
As usual, our acknowledged Obot Mr. Rogers inspires clarification of the misdirection surrounding the eligibility issue. So many, Philman, siezethecarp, wintertime, too many to name you all, on this thread are showing such an excellent grasp of the issues that there is little left to clarify. But Mr. Rogers, grasping as usual at straws, has raised two issues the rest of you haven't bothered with yet, the relevance of SR511 and the claim that Minor v. Happwsett’s confirmation of the common-law definition is dictum - not necessary to the resolution of the appeal.
Let's look at SR511. Since the courts will not defend the Constitution, a natural question in a representative republic is why doesn't the legislature act? Since every U.S. Senator signed SR511, except for Senator McCain, SR511 gives us lots of information about the eligibility issue: Since Obama was one of the signatories of SR511, it is important to see what they agreed to, and, by implication, what they agreed to cover up so that McCain would be Obama's opponent. McCain was clearly the reason that no Republican would respond to his or her constituents' written pleas to vet Obama's eligibility as was done for McCain.
1) SR511, signed April 30 2008, was the second effort by Obama’s campaign committee, whose Chairperson, Clare McCaskill was a cosponsor of both efforts. 2) Both S.2678, in Feb 2008 and SR511 had the same objective, making Senator McCain appear eligible to be Obama’s opponent. (S.2678 was “A Bill To Insure That Foreign Born Children of Military Citizens Are Eligible to be President”).
3) McCain still had a pending lawsuit challenging his eligibility, and a resolution would provide some legal cover when power brokers order a judge to dismiss the case. Even while a "resolution is simply an opinion, with no action associated, the Hollowell lawsuit was dropped as soon as SR511 was signed.
4) The signatures of all Senators accompanied testimony to which they signed their accord: “Because he was born to American citizens, there is no doubt in my mind that Senator McCain is a ``natural born Citizen’’.” Judiciary Committee Chair Pat Leahy agreed with the statement above, given by former judge Michael Chertoff. No Senator disagreed.
5) Obama Con Law professor Larry Tribe and former Solicitor General Ted Olson, Tribe also on the Obama Campaign Committee submitted a legal analysis which confirmed that all Senators accepted the two criteria for a natural born citizen, though the legal statement was intentionally vague, and, in some places, patently dishonest. Tribe says, in his analysis “These sources all confirm that the phrase ``natural born’’includes both birth abroad to parents who were citizens, and birth within a nation's territory and allegiance.” The question should be raised since Tribe's use of the word “both” is intentionally vague. But Larry cleared it up by citing Wong Kim Ark. Wong Kim was born “within a nation's territory and allegiance” and was made a jus soli, or native-born, or 14th Amendment citizen: not a natural born citizen. Thus Larry must have meant the correct, Minor, Marshall, Bingham, Hughes, interpretation when he used the work both - “ These sources all confirm that the phrase ``natural born’’ includes both birth abroad to parents who were citizens, and birth within a nation's territory and allegiance.”
To support his “birth abroad” claim Larry cites “First Congress, Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 783, 790-91 (1983); and to the common law at the time of the Founding. United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U. S. 649, 655 (1898).” Were this 1790-1791, Tribe's claim about the First Congress would have been true, but by the Third Congress, 1795, the Naturalization Act of 1790 was wholly repealed, the term natural born citizen never again to appear in an act of Congress. Tribe certainly knows that. What remains is Tribe's assertion that a natural born citizen is not born abroad, but is born to citizen parents, and on territory over which the US has jurisdiction, which is sort of true (though not true of the Canal Zone, according to Democrat Law Professor Gabriel Chin, who cites law rendering the 1936 Canal Zone unincorporated).
Wong Kim Ark's parents were non-citizen parents, and the case does not address natural born citizenship, other than to cite Minor, and mention that the native-born citizen has all the rights of a natural born citizen, differentiating the two classes, but not clarifying that being President is not a right. Justice Gray's first citation in WKA is to Minor, and Gray never questions the definition asserted by Minor, finally determining that Wong Kim is a 14th Amendment citizen, just like Obama. No Supreme Court interpretation can be be changed by inference. Changes must be explicit, and Gray certainly didn't try to modify Minor - he cited it as precedence.
Thus SR.511 confirms that every Senator, or at least, every Senator who read SR.511, knew that NBC was associated with being born to two citizen parents. That was the foundation of SR.511, as well as the prior action, a bill, S.2678. And every Senator knew that Barack was born to no more than one citizen parent, and that she was a dual citizen, too young to confer citizenship. Barack, as he himself told us, is a "Native born citizen of the U.S." - a 14th Amendment naturalized citizen. They all know, and clearly don't care whether we understand the truth. They may have noted how quickly Obama brought ethics charges upon Congressman Nathan Deal when Deal was so audacious as to write a public letter to the White House asking for confirmation of eligibility.
Mr. Rogers states that “The dicta in WKA goes into great detail on what NBC means.” Hardly. Justice Gray mentions natural born subjects, but cites Minor in which the common law definition of NBC is unequivocally confirmed - “it was never doubted.”
Finally, the claim that the definition in Minor of who were natural born citizens is dictum is not supported by the facts. Elizabeth Minor claimed that the 14th Amendment granted her voting rights. Chief Justice Waite addressed her claim by showing that Mrs Minor, a citizen, had no voting right before the 14th Amendment, and that the 14th Amendment nowhere addressed suffrage. To have jurisdiction the court needed Mrs. Minor to be a Constitutional Citizen. Before the 14th Amendment, there was only one class of citizen defined in the Constitution, and that was the class of natural born citizens. Like every term but one, “Treason”, this term was defined, as Justice Waite explained, in the common language and common law familiar to our framers. (As Madison explained, definitions were not included in the Constitution. It needed to be interpreted in the language and common law familiar to the framers to have meaning.)
Natives or natural born citizens were citizens about whose citizenship there was no doubt. Being a natural born citizen, Justice Waite explained, made Elizabeth Minor a citizen. He also explained that there were still doubts about who belonged to the class of naturalized citizens, just established six years before by the 14th Amendment. Waite avoided the uncertainties of the 14th Amendment by using the never doubted class, and by far the largest class of citizens, citizen born on our soil to parents who were citizen. This construction would not have been possible without the confirmation of the Marshall, Bingham, Vattel, Washington, Hamilton, Jay, definition, the never doubted definition. That established the Minor v. Happersett interpretation as positive law. (A fact confirmed by the scrubbing of citations to Minor v. Happersett from more than two dozen Supreme Court decisions by Center for American Progress associates Tim Stanley and Carl Malamud at Justia.com, Google, Cornell, and who knows where else.)
With the Minor v. Happersett decision depending upon the Vattel common law, we don't need the wild goose chases. When progressives assiduously avoid Marshall and Waite and Bingham (author of the 14th Amendment), you don't need the tours through crackpot legal tools like Ankeny, Carter, and Malihi. It is disappointing that our presumed pundits, Levin, Beck, Limbaugh, etc. etc. prove their fear and impotence by avoiding Chief Justice Marshall, Chief Justice Waite, Chief Justice Hughes, Congressman Bingham, and many more of our brightest stars, but we can read for ourselves. Perhaps someone unafraid of the certain attack on income, character, and impervious to Alinsky’s 5th Rule, the use of ridicule, will arise. For now, we need, as Beck understood and proclaimed, but couldn't abide, we need to question boldly. We have the most to lose, but our numbers will dwarf theirs as we communicate the truth.
In the realm of conspiracies, it is public information that Alwaleed bin-Talal is second to Murdock among News Corp investors - Fox News, Wall Street Journal. The evidence grows as the Feb 18 WSJ leads with a front page advertisment (with no disclaimer) touting the great strides being made by the Arab Spring and Muslim Brotherhood with America's business community. Alwaleed, Obama's supporter through college according to Percy Sutton, now uses our oil purchases to sell us on a partnership leading to Sharia Law in our largest business daily. That could have explained Beck's fear, particularly as he proudly displayed the historical books he was discovering. Somehow, he never came across the delightful WWII book by historians who discovered that Vattel's Law of Nations was the first book on Washington's desk in his New York office on his first day as president. He didn't come across the pamphlet describing our first law school, created by Thomas Jefferson in 1779 at William and Mary, where Jefferson made Vattel our first law book, and where it remained the leading reference for over fifty years. Obama, bin-Talal, and Soros are busily rewriting our history.
Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity, and Fox News are all broadcast on Premiere Radio, a Bain Capital company. Is that why they avoid our greatest Supreme Court justice and the most cited legal source for thirty years after the ratification, Law of Nations? Is that why the importation of Law of Nations by Ben Franklin, where he provided at least six copies to The Colonies beginning in 1763 is too close to the fire of ineligibility for acknowledgment?
If we don't head off this coup soon the 1st Amendment will mean no more than Article II Section 1, and this sort of honest discussion could land us in Bill Ayers' reeducation camps. From this thread it appears that more and more are finding the time to learn the truth. When we reach the desperation recorded by Russians during the years of the Bolshevik Revolution (much was written, but Ayn Rand's “We The Living” was close to the experiences of many I knew as a child), the time to learn will have passed, and and our Constitution will be a relic. Survival will be the issue.