Posted on 06/23/2012 6:13:41 AM PDT by urtax$@work
Contemplating about the subjects of Citizen and natural born Citizen , if anything, has shown me that the few words in the Constitution have sooo... many aspects that have been discovered, realized, understood thru discussions here on FR since 2008.
The FReeper postings from individuals across the country with varied backgrounds and educations have shown me all those varied aspects of better understanding of a subject, specifically the qualification aspects to hold federal office in our country.
Sometimes understanding or epiphanies of the NBC issues have come to me when i was not expecting such. The latest instance was yesterday when i was digging thru my college boxes (to show our youngest college bounder) and ran across my US History Survey text and leafed thru it. Flipped back to the appendices to the US Constitution . I was rereading the requirements to hold office and thinking about how to explain to a noob about the issue. ( I would show bar graphs of the stiffer requirements from US Rep to US Sen to President.)
Then it came to me that sometimes its more than just the plain words themselves that describe our laws but it's how the words are ARRANGED. Reread the qualifications of Rep., Sen., and president. There is one thing missing from the presidential citizenship phrase that is in the other two office holders citizen phrases.....It's the NUMBER OF YEARS. There are prescribed years for Rep and Sen to be Citizens. There are NO PRESCRIBED YEARS FOR NBC- which (again) reinforces the idea that it is attained only at birth.
I know NBC has been well discussed here but i don’t recall specifically the lack of prescribed years wording in conjunction with NBC and what that implies. If i did miss this little point in any previous discussion sorry to have wasted your time.
Born of parents who are US citizens at time of birth is what I have always been taught. My stepfather was born in Winnepeg and became a US citizen after going to classes and taking tests, taking the oath, etc. He was a naturalized US Citizen. A natural born citizen would never have to do anything other than enjoy the good fortune of his/her two US citizen parents.
The big push now, with the Obama precedent, is to make the presidency open to all comers and both parties are simpatico on this issue - that's why there is so much disagreement - IMO
No, Rubio was born in the United States, making him a citizen at birth and eliminating the need to be naturalized.
But the issue of Rubio's NBC status or lack thereof, and theerefore his constitutional eligibility for the vice presidency (the eligibility requirements for VP are exactly the same as for President, according to the Twelfth Amendment), boils down to whether or not his foreign-born parents were naturalized by the time of his birth.
Does anyone know the date on which Marco Rubio's parents were naturalized?
According to the Vattel definition of "Natural Born Citizen," from which the writers of the Constitution undoubtedly took that term, your children are ineligible for the presidency and vice-presidency because you, their father, were not a citizen at the time of their birth.
But they are eligible for any other federal office.
Good point.
I was talking with a college student this week and he thought white and Christian were part of the requirements for POTUS. He had no clue about NBC.
For all your focus on detail, why would you claim that Rubio is a naturalized citizen, when by your own (and everyone else’s) definition, he is not?
What a freakin' idiot he is, a product of a dumbed down leftist controlled public school education I would think.
BTW, the Constitution explicitly prohibits any religious test for any federal public office.
The sad thing is that he votes and his vote counts the same as yours or mine.
Rubio is a *native* citizen, under the 14th amendment. A statutory citizen.
I had read that his father became a US citizen when Rubio was four. I had also read something supposedly from Rubio himself that his parents had kind of always hoped to be able to go back.
That’s cool RedSteel - is there one for his mother?
Even the usurper acknowledged the definition of TWO CITIZEN PARENTS when he signed SR 511 in committee. He signed it again when it went to the Senate. Every Senator who signed the resolution to vet McCain can’t wiggle out of it now. By SCOTUS’ own words, they are “evading” the NBC issue. They’re evading it because they know he’s not eligible. The big question is why was it Roberts who did the swearing in? Why wasn’t it a lefty? Who decided it’d be Roberts? The answer is whatever went on behind closed doors, Roberts was party to it so now they have power over him. It’s the same with Congress who signed off on the TWO CITIZEN PARENTS definition. They allowed it to happen and now they’d lose everything if they dare speak up.
Rubio is now engaged in a farce. By not making it clear to the Romney people that he is constitutionally ineligible for the vice presidency (since his father was not a citizen at the time of his birth) and acting in every way that his, he is helping to trash the Constitution of the United States.
Let's hope that the Romney folks choose someone constitutionally eligible as the VP nominee, rather than create another constitutional crisis.
That's a really silly thing to post for someone who is not a professional.
You are flying in the fact of a large volume of professional literature; an able opinion of an experienced expert professional published by the Congressional Research Service; and a volume of recent court experience, most recently the ALJ in Georgia who refused to even hear the argument, the answer is so clear.
The issue is about a forecast of what the U S Supreme Court would hold if confronted with the question of Rubio's eligibility to hold the office because of an objection based on the citizenship of his parents--the objection would not get any serious consideration; the Court will hold him eligible.
If what you mean is that the "natural born" clause ought to include some ancestral citizenship or residency or citizen commitment in edition to citizenship at birth of the candidate, I agree.
But as to the state of the law at present, you are simply living in a dream world.
Not that I am aware of that's in the public domain. Likely that her husband became a US citizen before she did.
I’m unclear why this was a revelation to you.
AFAIK everybody is in agreement that NBC status can only be acquired at birth.
The debate is between all “citizens at birth” being NBC, and NBC being a subset of “citizen at birth.”
Using the first definition, there are two categories of US citizens: NBC/CAB and naturalized.
With the second, there are three: naturalized, NBC, and CAB but not NBC.
IMO there are legitimate arguments for Obama falling into either of the second two categories (assuming there’s a difference). Which is why we need a Supreme Court ruling.
Unfortunately, you're probably correct about what the current SCOTUS would do; unfortunately, people who have a decent respect for the original meaning of the Constitution are few and far between in today's federal judiciary.
That's one reason why today's federal judiciary, especially the SCOTUS and some of the more outrageous Circuit courts, is held in such low esteem by so many of us (even though the SCOTUS might throw us a bone by disabling Obamacare next week). They too often go with the political winds, rather than the Constitution.
I know it's only hypothetical, but how do you think the Minor v. Happersett Court would rule on Rubio's eligibility?
If it’s for POTUS purposes, there’s no need for his mother’s naturalization as he’s already out of the race with his father. Same as Hussein’s daddy not being a US citizen at the time of his hatching.
Of course, this new crop of RINOS don’t care about what the founding fathers’ invisioned. They’re one and the same as the imposter squatting in the WH. The RATS got one ineligible candidate posing as POTUS so it’s just a matter of months before the RINOS get their ineligible candiates in office as the final stake in killing Article II. Go back through all the 2008 POTUS candidates and their VPs and you’ll be shocked at how many weren’t eligible. In order of most votes:
Obama/Biden - Obama not
McCain/Palin - McCain not born on US military base
Nader/Gonzalez - Gonzalez not
Barr/Root - finally an eligible ticket
At least that one is teachable. There are many who aren’t. A few months back another college student told me how great Obama was because he caaaaared about people and that we didn’t need anymore old white men as POTUS. He didn’t have a clue about the requirements nor did he care to learn because he and his parents are liberals taking stimulus money for their green business that contracts overseas. If only I could remind him about old white men when he becomes an old white man.
Yes, he's likely correct but not likely in the long term as long as the pressure keeps up. I could be wrong, but I don't think Rubio will be selected as VP by Romney because enough of us have made a racket about the NBC issue. The ABC news report were probably correct that inside sources said Rubio was not being vetted, and Romney had to come out to say Rubio "is being vetted" after Hannity, et al, came out chanting, after hearing about the report, - Rubio, Rubio, oh my Rubio. ;-) The effort is working.
The argument is not that a "natural born" citizen is a person who became a citizen at birth because of the place, condition, or circumstances of their birth.
You should note that lawyers, particularly the immigration bar, tend to use the phrase "natural born" as a form of shorthand, when they mean "citizen at birth". They are not thinking about the the question as a legal issue under the only circumstances in our law where any requirement of "natural born" would make a difference which is Article II, sec. 1 of the Constitution.
The requirement that a person become a citizen at birth because of the place, condition, or circumstances of their birth is one of the requirements of Natural Born Citizenship, but it is not the only requirement.
The other remaining substantive requirement of natural born citizenship is that it occur within the geographical territory of the several states.
Thus a person who was born in an embassy offshore; or on a military base; or on a territory not subject to permanent sovereignty of the US; does not qualify as Natural Born.
Although I am on the hook for the proposition that, for example, Goldwater, who was born in the territory of Arizona prior to statehood would qualify, I wouldn't be embarrassed to make the contrary argument if I were on the other side for the reason that the prospect of possible sovereignty in some other jurisdiction than the United States presented the exposure of exercise of that sovereignty over the President.
I suppose that the academic answer of the day which was that risk was eliminated by the fact that prior to the time he became a candidate, Arizona had been admitted as a state was the likely result if the case got to the Supreme Court.
But the point is that to the extent any requirement other than citizenship at birth was incorporated in the "natural born" clause, whatever the original intended scope of that requirement--what exists today if the issue reaches the Supreme Court is a requirement that the birth have occurred under circumstances where the person could not have ever been subject to the sovereignty of some other head of state as a consequence of the place or circumstances of birth. That requirement necessitates that the birth have occurred within the territory of the several states.
Technically, as someone points out above, the language in Minor v. Happersett, 88 US 162 (1875) stating that the holding encompassed citizenship by birth in the several states and parental citizenship is dicta to the extent of the parental citizenship language.
Technically adept lawyers recognize that language as dicta for two reasons. The parental citizenship fact was not required to find that the Plaintiff was a citizen at birth--she was a citizen at birth even if her parents were not citizens. Further, the language is dicta because the technical issue presented did not include the question of "natural born" citizenship.
That is, the question of whether or not a person is a "natural born" citizen or not is relevant for only one purpose under our law and that is under Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution to test the eligibility of a person to hold the office of President of the United States--that was not the issue in Minor.
As to the guy in the White House, Barry, his issue is a place of birth problem only whoever his parents were.
In my opinion, if he was born outside the US, he is not Natural Born and is not eligible; if he was born inside the territory of the several states, the answer is to the contrary. It is that simple and there is pretty clearly enough record on the proposition that anyone who wants to read any of the judicial pronouncements or literature on the question should recognize that is how the Court would come down.
The discussion here also includes the topic of the swearing in ceremony.
Someone says there is no evidence of an issue other than the technical reading of the oath that there was some other cure issue in the later swearing ceremonies.
The evidence is the appearance of Vice President Cheney in a recorded element of a second alternate swearing.
See there were really a total of three swearing in ceremonies--the first the public which was ineffective; the second a private ceremony the circumstances of which were recorded with Cheney's presence; the third the ceremony with Robert's of which the video is in circulation.
The one that counted was the second.
Same way.
Somewhere there is out there floating around, an inside baseball story which had credibility with the Con Law bar that the language about "natural born" was incorporated for a reason not related to the argument in Minor.
Having researched the history of the Constitutional provision extensively, I will tell you that I think the argument is pretty clear that even as to original intent, the founder's were directly focused on the legal substance--they were primarily concerned only about place of birth and that because they were concerned about the prospect that someone who was under the jurisdiction of a foreign sovereign would become head of state of the US.
I don't even see a more Constitutionally committed Court kicking an elected President or Vice President out over the birthplace of his parents--if the issue were ever relevant, it would be because you could argue that they were the parents on vacation in the US; the kid was born in the US but because they were sojourners or other happenstance presence persons, the kid was subject to the jurisdiction of the sovereign of the place of the parents citizenship.
In the modern world, even that argument doesn't have much force either. I have had a case where US taxing authorities have sought to collect millions of dollars of tax from a German national because in 1946, his mother accompanied his father for a week at a post war business conference in New York when he was born and he was therefore a US Citizen who owed tax on his multi millions of world wide income over the intervening period.
In the case of Rubio, there isn't any argument that he was only the result of a temporary event in the US.
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