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How to get eligibility ruling from Supremes

Lawyer outlines strategy to prompt court decision

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Posted: May 16, 2009

http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=98245

At the point where the arguments over Obama’s eligibility eventually reach a courtroom, there are many valid arguments against his eligibility, according to a paralegal whose research has played a role in some of the pending legal actions.

Leonard Daneman told WND he’s written to members of the U.S. Supreme Court suggesting they render an opinion on the definition of “natural born citizen” without addressing the political ramifications, simply to establish a precedent in the law.

“The Supreme Court may feel obligated to ignore, or even dismiss the ‘merits’ of the numerous eligibility cases due to the political questions doctrine,” he told WND.

“But the court can still publish … an apolitical opinion solely on the law, U.S. Const. art. II, § 2, cl. 5, The Natural Born Citizen Eligibility Clause.”

Many critics have said the overwhelming circumstantial evidence available to date suggests Obama is not a U.S. citizen, because of his move to Indonesia.

“When the Constitution was being composed, John Jay asked George Washington, ‘whether it would not be wise and reasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of foreigners into the administration of our national government and to declare expressly that the command(er) in chief of the American army shall not be given to, nor devolve on, any but a natural born citizen,’” Daneman wrote to the Supreme Court.

“The chief author of the 14th Amendment, Sen. John A. Bingham, wrote,

‘[E]very human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen,’” Daneman’s letter continued.

His suggested the Supreme Court justices release a definition of “natural born citizen” and then “the political questions will then remain in the proper forum, or branch of government.”

Tokaji said the Constitution itself clearly recognizes the possibility of an ineligible president, demanding in the 20th Amendment that

“if the president elect shall have failed to qualify, then the vice president elect shall act as president until a president shall have qualified.”

“Unfortunately,” he continued, “it does not explicitly say who is to make the determination whether a president elect has ‘failed to qualify.’”

“There is a good reason for believing that this sort of dispute belongs in state court.

Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution provides:

‘Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of senators and representatives to which the state may be entitled in the Congress,’” he said.

Aligning with that view was the 2000 election decision by the Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore.

The high court found the state supreme court’s construction of certain provisions of state election law went beyond the bounds of proper statutory interpretation.

Yet none of the justices disputed that state courts may hear cases alleging violations of state election states, Tokaji found.

He concluded that because a state court’s opinion would be based on federal law, the U.S. Supreme Court then could hear the case on a petition for writ of certiorari.

“This is true even if the original state-court action would not have been justiciable in federal court,” he said.