Posted on 02/05/2015 6:37:16 AM PST by wtd
Washington D.C. (MMD Newswire) February 4, 2015 – The last of the legal challenges to the eligibility of Barack Hussein Obama to be President of the United States was docketed by Tracy A. Fair at the United States Supreme Court today. In a surprise move, Mrs. Fair argued in her Petition not that Obama was ineligible conceding that point was now moot. Instead, Mrs. Fair raised the question of the eligibility of declared Presidential candidates Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, and Governor Bobby Jindal. In particular, Mrs. Fair argued that unresolved is whether or not these three are in fact "natural born Citizens".
Mrs. Fair said: "Rubio and Jindal were born in the United States to parents who were not United States citizens at the time of their respective births. Ted Cruz was born in Canada to parents only one of whom (his mother) was a United States citizen. Under the law existing at the time of their birth, each became a 'citizen' of the United States at birth. Marco Rubio and Bobby Jindal by the 14th Amendment, Ted Cruz by statute."
As most all know, under Article II, Section 1, clause 5 of the Constitution: "No person except a natural born Citizen . . ., shall be eligible to the Office of President." Mrs. Fair continued: "That phrase 'natural born Citizen' has yet to be defined by the Supreme Court. So are they "natural born Citizens" eligible to be President? I think the People deserve to know the answer to that question before the next Presidential Campaign starts in earnest."
Mrs. Fair, who has shepherded her case through the complexities of the legal system by herself to the Supreme Court concluded: "My efforts were never about Mr. Obama as a person or a politician. Instead, my efforts were about insuring that the Constitution was respected and enforced by those charged with those duties. Where a phrase in the Constitution - such as 'natural born Citizen' - is undefined, it is the duty of the Supreme Court to interpret such a phrase. As the Supreme Court itself said in the 1922 case of Fairchild v. Hughes, I have: 'the right, possessed by every citizen, to require that the Government be administered according to law.' By repeatedly refusing to 'say what the law is' regarding 'natural born Citizen', the Supreme Court would abolish the rule of law and replace it with the rule of their whim and caprice to whatever political ends that super-legislature may possess."
See a copy of the petition here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/254604115/Fair-v-Obama-Petition-for-Writ-of-Certiorari
See the Supreme Court Docket for Case No 14-933 here: http://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docketfiles/14-933.htm
For More Information Contact: TRACY A. FAIR: (410-552-5907) OR TRACYSPLACE2002@VERIZON.NET
I do not see this issue as being an obstruction to a Cruz Presidency/Vice-Presidency.
Then we think alike on Cruz - his mother was American citizen at birth - they just happened to be living in Canada at the time. To my mind, that suits the murky language.
I am not quite as familiar with Jindal or Rubio’s situation.
George Romney’s eligibility absolutely was an issue. In fact the Congressional Research Service studied the question and agreed that he was eligible.
http://www.public.asu.edu/~jloneil1/Random/PapaMitt.pdf
His birth certificate (note the parent's race or color):
Senator Rubio's parents came to the US in 1956 but didn't become US citizens (1975) until after his birth.
His father's naturalization papers can be viewed here:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/62055196/Rubio-Naturalization-Petition-CERTIFIED-from-National-Archives
How do you interpret the NBC issue in light of this for these two?
Governor Jindal was born on June 10, 1971 but his birth certificate was not accepted by the State until August 11th, 1971 or filed by the State until August 13th, 1971.
Is that an anomaly?
Both are clearly native born.
The Founders used the terms native born and natural born interchangeably.
Both are eligible.
BTW, in post# 183 I linked a 1968 Congressional Research Service article on George Romney’s eligibility (he was born in Mexico). The CRS found him to be eligible.
The same research would apply to Senator Cruz.
Thanks - those are my calculations as well.
As I reread the CRS analysis on George Romney it isn’t as straightforward as I remembered it (or disremembered a la Brian Williams).
The meaning has been “jus soli,” a person born in the U.S. or a person born overseas to American parents who have lived in the U.S. with exceptions to the rule for persons born to foreigners with diplomatic immunity and members of a foreign invading military plus prior to 1924, persons born with American Indian tribal sovereignty.
We have specific law to that effect: 8 U.S.C. § 1401
“To further delineate” natural born citizen as requiring two U.S. citizen parents even if a person is born in the U.S. would require legislation, constitutional amendment or a Supreme Court ruling to that effect.
http://www.public.asu.edu/~jloneil1/Random/PapaMitt.pdf
From the document:
If the Fourteenth Amendment does not confine the class of natural born citizens to those born in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction, then the scope of the class would seem to have been fixed by the intent of the Framers and it is arguable that no Act of Congress could either enlarge or diminish it.
I would say it is inarguable.
In fact the Congressional Research Service studied the question and agreed that he was eligible.
You read it wrong. It said that if the court decides it along one theory, it works out that way. If the court decides it along a different theory, then it works out a different way. In fact they said George Romney being a natural born citizen, was the least likely outcome.
What they said in summary is "it's complicated." It is not a definitive opinion by any stretch.
The document reiterates many of my own arguments and conclusions, primary among them being that Congress can't change the meaning of any constitutional term by statute. It also points out that George Romney is only a citizen because of statute. (As is Obama)
The document goes down the typical rabbit hole chasing after English Common law, and simply doesn't bother considering when and where English law conflicts with American law and was therefore deliberately rejected by the founders. It follows the erroneous but blanket assumption that English Common law was adopted in it's entirety, when this is most certainly not true.
Yes they did, but they didn't use the modern meaning of the word "native." Justice Waite explained this clearly in Minor v Happersett:
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.
The CRS found him to be eligible.
No it didn't. It said that it was possible that he would be found eligible, but that this was the least likely outcome.
Finally, it could reach the most simple, but perhaps least likely, conclusion that anyone Congress makes a citizen from the moment of birth is a "natural born citizen" eligible to be President.
And most importantly, it absolutely FORBADE citizenship to descend to anyone who's Father was not a Resident.
Provided, that the right of citizenship shall not descend to persons whose fathers have never been resident in the United States:
While we're at it, I would suggest that what Barack Obama Sr. was doing in Hawaii at the time he was there can be construed as a diplomatic mission. He was brought here for the purpose of receiving an education so as to better serve his own country, and he was therefore an agent or representative thereof. He did go back and serve in his government thereafter.
I'm thinking he was even flown over here by the State Department, wasn't he? Anyone remember?
I had the advantage of reading it for the first time. No, it doesn't remove uncertainty. It basically says the court will have to decide, but it does take a brick bat to some of the assertions by the pro jus-soli crowd.
I of course, have never considered pronouncements of the court to be the last word, preferring instead to trust history, reason, and natural law to determine what is the actual truth.
We've had too many examples in history where the court was simply wrong.
As would the Supreme Court decision in Rogers v. Bellei.
Do you know what a cognitive dissonance it is to cite a *law* regarding a constitutional term?
“To further delineate” natural born citizen as requiring two U.S. citizen parents even if a person is born in the U.S. would require legislation, constitutional amendment or a Supreme Court ruling to that effect.
No more so than requiring a law to delineate "bullets" as a necessary requirement for "arms." In cases where you can't have one without the other, it is an unnecessary redundancy.
That would have been a novel approach but it was never attempted in any of the judicial or state election board Obama eligibility challenges.
Barack Obama Senior was in the U.S. on a student visa and he was pursuing an undergraduate degree at the University of Hawaii and then graduate degrees at Harvard. He made applications with the Immigration and Naturalization Service to extend his student visa to the doctoral degree but the application for study beyond the Master’s Degree was denied.
If he had been granted diplomatic immunity or if he had arrived on a diplomatic visa, then your point would be well taken.
Obama Senior’s study in the U.S. was funded by private scholarships primarily from American philanthropist Helen M. Roberts but also through money donated by Senator John F. Kennedy, Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier, and Jackie Robinson.
It is not obvious that "natural born" means "born in the country with citizen parents". It is tortured.
The only thing obvious would be that the meaning of "natural born citizen" parallels the meaning of "natural born subject", which surprise surprise, the courts have already said is precisely what it does. And that means being born in the country is enough.
What I know is that every law that exists in the U.S. Code is constitutional unless and until it is invalidated for being unconstitutional. The cognitive dissonance rests with you. Any high school civics student knows how statutory laws work in accordance with constitutional law.
If it was an “unnecessary redundancy” at some point in time a person who didn’t have two U.S. citizen parents would have been ruled not to be a natural born citizen. That has never happened.
Parenthood is a very inexact method. In the absence of DNA tests are we ever certain that the people listed on a birth certificate are really the biological parents? And do the parents have to be natural born citizens themselves or can they be naturalized citizens?
For example, what if, as has been speculated by some, Frank Marshall Wright is Barack Obama’s true biological father? If that were determined by paternity testing, that would make Obama a natural born citizen by any standard since Frank Marshall Wright was born in Arkansas City, Kansas and Stanley Ann Dunham was born in Wichita, Kansas.
However it HAS happened that persons have been ruled not to be natural born citizens on the basis of not being born in the United States with U.S. citizen parents. The latest being Roger Calero of the Social Workers Party who ran for president in 2004 and in 2008 and who was born in Nicaragua and who needed to have a substitute candidate run in his place in some states.
“Thus, at long last, there emerged an express constitutional definition of citizenship.” Rogers v. Bellei
How does Rogers apply to Senator Cruz?
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