Posted on 07/31/2009 7:45:45 PM PDT by RegulatorCountry
The Constitution specifies that in addition to being "natural born," the president must be 35 years old and with a minimum 14-year residency in the country. The same applies to the vice president.
Nickles's legislation, inspired by an aide who adopted two children from Eastern Europe, does not address immigrants' right to hold America's highest office. But his colleague Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, last year introduced a constitutional amendment to loosen the prohibition on foreign-born citizens serving as president.
The Constitution's framers chose the term "natural born" not only to highlight the need for allegiance, but also to eliminate the possibility that foreigners could exert power over the fledgling government, according to constitutional experts. Since then, immigrants have served in the highest posts in nearly every other facet of American life.
Hatch's proposal would allow anyone who has been a U.S. citizen for 20 years, and completed 14 years of residency to serve as president. (Earlier legislative proposals, also yet to be passed, would require immigrants to be naturalized for 35 years before becoming eligible to be president.)
But Nickles figures that his bill may have a better chance of becoming law quickly because amending the Constitution is typically a years-long process requiring two-third votes in each House of Congress and approval by 38 st
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The current iteration of "birthers" just don't support these efforts of long standing, hence the derision.
from the relative calm of my agnosticism on this issue, I find it fasciniting the machinations that are being exerted in antagonism to the “birthers.”
I have said the state legislation is better and quicker to accomplish. I don’t see this one getting through Congress. But, I do see that some individual states can do this quickly. It would technically only require one state to enact the law, but having five or so would be better, so that no candidate could bypass those states and no comply...
You didn’t even read the excerpt, did you?
All that matters to me, to accomplish on this issue, is to get state legislation passed, in about five states, hopefully, and then we can use it for the next election...
Guess I need to add Hatch to the list of
Obama, Clinton, McCaskill ORIGINAL ‘BIRTHERS’ (April 10, 2008): Scrubbing McCain’s NBC Status
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2298857/posts
Hatch needs to be voted out of office.
I’m firmly in the “he’s clearly ineligible under original intent” camp, myself.
Whenever I’m able, rarely, to step away from the particulars and look at such a widespread pattern, of delegitimization of dissent basically, I’m somewhere between awed and gravely alarmed. Outright suppression won’t be far behind, if we fail, imho.
Forget loosening requirements why has it become necessary after more that two hundred years to specify procedures to verify eligibility?
The simple fact vis-à-vis verifying presidential candidates is it's a new age; gone is the age of trusting each other because we were Americans first. We competed for the "spoils" but we were Americans first and we respected the Constitution.
No more. Enter the 1960s Marxist-Alinsky hippie street rabble and their ideological issue (Obama, the Nytimese and millions more)-cum-Rat Party (formerly the traditional, patriotic Democratic Party). F--- the Constitution, the ends justify the means.
It may take a Constitutional crisis to get the Rat to release his long form b.c. like Americans do all the time -- and yes it may prove Hawaiian birth, etc. but at least he'd be doing what Americans are expected to do.
The Republican power structure wants to erode citizenship just as much as Democrats do. That’s where many conservatives still have the wool over their eyes.
Because no one in a position to do so made any attempt. And, that is because they're all to some degree hostile, quietly or openly, to the concept of Constitutional citizenship by birth (as opposed to Constitutional citizenship at birth ... big difference there).
All the cites of the 14th Amendment in the world don't make it other than lex soli. Natural born citizen status cannot be conferred by statute.
YEP.
Why? Because there are no living witnesses that can vouch for his authenticity, nor has he provided any official documents to prove it.
This is right when 0 was ascending to kingship, just before he delivered the keynote at the RAT convention. Who the hell
did Hatch have in mind?
Somehow, while we states are winning the 10th Amendment fight, we’ve got to clarify the Natural Born clause for our secretaries of State with it before ‘12.
Another dog breath politician trying to piss on the Constitution.
This is no difference than the democrats trying to do away with the electoral collage by vote and in fact may lead to the same.
IMO as I tried to explain it's because we did not have to. We trusted and knew each other. It was not an issue. Though I believe that Goldwater was born in the territory of Arizona. And yes there were lying rascals but they were our lying rascals.
I was trying to say in effect that the Democratic Party has been taken over by revolutionaries who have moved beyond being Americans and they have moved from the streets and campuses to the White House and Congress.
Their revolution can now be from the top down.
They are the reason we must now "trust but verify."
His old colleague John McCain, no doubt. But, the timing is interesting, coinciding with the ascension of Obama, as you note.
Can we honestly say that 1/3 of the states have enough state legislators who, for one, actually understand the Constitutinal eligibility requirements for the office of President, and, two, are committed to preserving original intent, since it has never been challenged or amended?
I've been saying for the past several days, that an amendment isn't possible, due to Constitutional supremacy over the judicial, in matters pertaining to the judicial, as per Marbury v. Madison, and that Congress is Constitutionally limited as well, with powers enumerated over immigration and naturalization only.
And, looking to Article V, no amendment can deprive even one other state, of its equal suffrage, so even going the states route does not appear, to me, to be tenable, provided that any state objects to such an amendment.
send Hatch back to his former job as an iron lather.
Don’t change the current requirements!!!!!!
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