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To: Nero Germanicus
Nah, the topic under discussion was whether Congressman John Bingham’s statements on the floor of the House of Representatives were dispositive in interpretating the meaning of 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause.

Your statement, to which mine was a response was this:

If Congress was to pass a bill and a president signed it into law or if the Supreme Court was to rule that two U.S. citizen parents are required in order to be a natural born citizen, I would be supportive, but that is not the case at this time.

I read that as meaning that you think "natural born citizen" can be changed by an act of congress. I was just pointing out that this is tantamount to amending the constitution by statute.

163 posted on 02/19/2015 3:02:44 PM PST by DiogenesLamp
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To: DiogenesLamp

You’re reading too much in to my statement; not “changed” but explicitly delineated.

In 1875 in Minor v Happersett, the Supreme Court said that “the Constitution does not say, in words, who shall be natural born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to determine that.”

I was suggesting that a possible “elsewhere” might be a bill passed by Congress and signed into law by a president.
All we need to do is look at what has occurred in the absence of such clarifying legislation.


171 posted on 02/19/2015 6:28:32 PM PST by Nero Germanicus (PALIN/CRUZ: 2016)
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