The requirements to be president are more stringent than just being a citizen. Besides being a certain minimum age, one is also required to be a “natural born citizen”. My understanding was that one had to be born within the borders of the US to US citizens, i.e. both parents also had to be US citizens at the time of your birth.
I was born outside the US and although both my parents were and always have been US citizens, my understanding was that I was unqualified to be president. Apparently this is incorrect as McCain is qualified, so I don't really know what constitutes classification as “natural born citizen”.
All I know is that it is a stricter qualification than simple “citizenship”. Naturalized citizens, for instance, i,e. those who become citizens of the US after birth, are never eligible to serve as president. This provision was made to ensure that a sitting president would never have any allegiance to a country other than the US. In that context it makes sense.
Not quite. Anyone born in the US, regardless of their parents' citizenship qualifies. Anyone born to 2 American citizens abroad qualifies. The only tough area is someone born abroad to only 1 American citizen, at least in the past.
Apparently this is incorrect as McCain is qualified, so I don't really know what constitutes classification as “natural born citizen”.
I understand it to mean anyone who is a citizen at birth, rather than through naturalization.
Being born on a military base is what makes McCain eligible as I think military bases are considered US territory, even within another’s borders. I would think being born in an embassy, while gross, would be a qualification as well. No legal expert I am though.
As to Constitutional eligibility of someone born of US parents in a foreign land?
That is the subject of a rather lively debate.
It is such an unresolved issue that in the last election cycle McCaskill submitted a bill to establish the eligibility to hold the office of the president to anyone born to a U.S. citizen who is serving overseas as an active or reserve member of the U.S. armed forces.
Why? Because senator McCain’s father was a Navy officer serving in the Canal Zone when McCain was born in Panama (NOT IN THE CANAL ZONE). That makes him technically ineligible in many minds.
The laws was never passed. Whether McCain is eligible is still an open question.
If it is not such an issue McCaskill wouldn’t have gone through the unsuccessful effort to try to clarify the non-issue.
It was an issue then. It is an issue now. Should McCain be elected the “progressives” will insure it remains an on-going issue. It will be their “modern” version of “selected, not elected”, and “He’s not MY president!”
McCaskill wasn’t able to get her bill passed. The most McCain has saying that congress recognizes his eligibility is a “sense of the senate”.
As if the senate had a lick of sense...