Posted on 06/25/2008 9:34:08 AM PDT by ml/nj
I don't know. I'm asking. IANAL.
But it seems to me that there are quite a few problems or questions concerning how a legal challenge could be made to prevent a non-natural-citizen from assuming the Presidency. One of these problems is that Constitutionally at least, no one is actually a candidate for the Presidency. The people that we vote for in November are electors. To be sure, these electors are usually pledged to vote for a specific person, but legally the electors are not bound by their respective pledges. Sometime in December the electors vote in secret in their respective State capitals and then these votes are opened and tallied by Congress in January. So January seems to me the first time that a challenge could be made. Obviously the tallier of the votes could demand proof of natural citizenship and just not tally votes in the absence of such proof for someone receiving a vote or votes. But the tallier might not do that.
Usually in order to challenge something in a court one has to have "standing." My understanding is that in order to gain standing one has to claim some sort of damage. Maybe I'm wrong about this. But it would be hard for any individual to claim that he had been damaged by a non-natural-citizen who had assumed the Presidency, let alone such a person whose assumption would still be in the future.
Finally I assume that if someone did have standing to bring such a case, that the Supreme Court would have original jurisdiction but of this I am by no means certain.
The Democrats seem to have a way of turning a process that has worked well for 200+ years into a circus. If Obama wins the election it would seem to me that he should be able to be forced to prove that he is eligible to assume the Presidency. I am wondering what course this process might take.
ML/NJ
I think the true identity of his father is the most obscure part of the whole story.
I am the grandson of a certain woman born in Berlin. During the 20s and 30s she had an international business based there. In 1936 she came to the United States to look for a place to bring her family. For two years prior to that she had been sending her son, my father, outside of Germany to attend school. During her last years in Germany she asked foreign clients, whom she could trust, not to pay her for goods she sent to them. On the day of Kristalnacht (Nov '38) she and her husband, my grandfather, left Germany for the US. They collected money owed to them in places like the Netherlands; they collected their son in England; and they came to live here in the United States.
I have her blood in my veins. I understand what is happening here, and I do not like it. Apparently, this doesn't concern you. I suggest you go watch some TV or attend a movie, if the comments here on FR trouble you. I, for one, intend to keep making whatever comments I please so long as I am permitted to make them.
ML/NJ
Well said.
ML/NJ
True enough, but my point is the same - election of party nominees is not a government function, subject to government rules.
Election of the President is.
Where in the Constitution do you find authority for something called a "Federal Election Commission"?
It's the President's job to see that the laws are faithfully upheld. If the FEC helps in that regard, then all the better.
Look, I don't care whether it's the FEC or the 57 states, but somebody should be responsible for vetting the qualifications of every Tom, Dick, and Barack who applies for the job.
Since it's a federal office, with federal eligibility requirements, it doesn't seem unreasonable to me that a federal office do it. Having 57 states do it separately serves no purpose that I see.
The point is that it should be done.
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