See if anyone wants to respond about this natural born citizenship debate. The subject comes up a lot on Free Republic. And there’s no consensus here on that.
As a practical matter, Rubio was a candidatein the 2016 primaries, and there was no controlling legal authority to prevent him from running. So there’s that.
I know some people say that both of your parents must have been American citizens, when you were born , for you to be natural born. But not everyone agrees on that. So there’s that.
Very true.
I would love to see a Constitutional Amendment which explicitly settles the matter with a completion definition and with a re-iteration that the president must be a NBC as defined in the Amendment, and that all federal judges must also be NBC. Also members of House and Senate.
When the Constitution was written, both one's parents must have been born in the U.S. in order for you to have NBC status.
Unfortunately, the waters have been muddied since then.
The Supreme Court decisions people are posting here are all on the issue of defining what establishes NBC status--not on defining the qualifications for the Presidency, which remain constitutionally explicit and unchanged.
Thus, Obama's two elections were constitutionally invalid, because only ONE of his parents satisfied the born-in-the-U.S. requirement.
To put it historically and literally, if both parents were not born in the U.S., the Constitution says you are not qualified to run for the Presidency, a requirement which reflects the Founders' repeated concerns for avoiding any foreign connections within the highest office.
I fear we are inexorably moving toward a time when just about anyone will be allowed to be nominated for the Presidency, the U.S. Constitution be damned.
With threads like this one, on a supposedly conservative website, we are almost there now.