Jamese, you continually ignore the points I’ve already made.
Nowhere does the Constitution or the 20th Amendment give Congress the job of determining Presidential eligibility. If the Constitution specifically gave that duty to another branch of government, it would be a “political question”. Otherwise, all cases arising out of the Constitution or laws are to be decided by the judiciary. This is clearly one of those issues, unless you can show me anywhere that the job is specifically given to somebody else in the Constitution.
See, one of the differences between thee and me is that I’ve read the Constitution and consider it to be the highest law of the land. Let me give you 4 references from the Constitution which support the idea that not every President can have the presidential powers or “act as President”.
Article II, Sec 1: “In case of the removal of the President from office, or of his death, resignation, or inability to discharge the powers and duties of the said office, the same shall devolve on the Vice President, and the Congress may by law provide for the case of removal, death, resignation or inability, both of the President and Vice President, declaring what officer shall then act as President, and such officer shall act accordingly, until the disability be removed, or a President shall be elected.”
Article II, Sec 1: “Before he enter on the execution of his office, he shall take the following oath or affirmation: - “I do solemnly swear (or affirm)( that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Amendment XII: “And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice President shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President.” (Note: this clarifies that the disability is a constitutional disability - that is, that the Constitution itself disables a standing President from acting as President.)
Amendment XX, Section 1 and Section 3: “The terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January... and the terms of their successors shall then begin”....... “If, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term of the President, the President elect shall have died, the Vice President elect shall become President. If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified...”
You have never addressed the fact that in Constitutional terms there is no recognition of a popular vote. For someone to be the President elect they had to have already gone through the process that Congress is involved in - counting the electoral votes and resolving issues if the electoral vote is split and thus results in no majority winner. The 20th Amendment lists separately the scenarios that the Pres elect has died or hasn’t been chosen. The part about the Pres elect failing to qualify is a different scenario.
A person can “fail to qualify” even after that process is all done. And a Pres elect can “fail to qualify” even though the VP elect qualifies. “Qualifying” is clearly something not related to the process but related to the personal circumstances of the individuals involved.
The only Constitutional disqualifiers from holding OFFICE (as opposed to disqualifiers from the execution of that office) is what is in Article II immediately preceding the first reference I cited in this post: “No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty five years, and been fourteen years a resident within the United States.”
How can Obama ever have been found to be eligible to the office of President if his age has never even been legally determined? It hasn’t. He STILL hasn’t “qualified”. Even if the whole world signed oaths saying that he qualified, Hawaii law, HRS 338-17, says that the birth certificate Hawaii’s got for Obama doesn’t mean anything legally if somebody just looks at it. It has to be presented as evidence to a judicial or administrative person or body and legally determined as probative before it means anything legally. So there is nobody in this world who can say what Obama’s LEGAL birth facts are, because they have never been determined.
I should actually correct that last line. There is almost certainly somebody in the WORLD who can say what Obama’s LEGAL birth facts are, but it would have to be based on the valid birth certificate he’s been using until he completed his Hawaii BC in 2006. That birth certificate is more than likely one from Kenya.
So somebody in the world could say what Obama’s legal birth facts are - but it still wouldn’t “qualify” Obama, which is why he refuses to present either his valid Kenyan BC or his legally-deficient Hawaii BC as evidence to anybody.
The 20th Amendment says that if he fails to “qualify” - presumably meaning to legally meet the qualifications to be eligible to the office of President, since the electoral requirement had to have already been met for him to be the President elect - the Vice President elect must “act as President” until a President qualifies.
Jamese, you continually ignore the points I’ve already made.
Nowhere does the Constitution or the 20th Amendment give Congress the job of determining Presidential eligibility. If the Constitution specifically gave that duty to another branch of government, it would be a “political question”. Otherwise, all cases arising out of the Constitution or laws are to be decided by the judiciary. This is clearly one of those issues, unless you can show me anywhere that the job is specifically given to somebody else in the Constitution.
See, one of the differences between thee and me is that I’ve read the Constitution and consider it to be the highest law of the land. Let me give you 4 references from the Constitution which support the idea that not every President can have the presidential powers or “act as President”.
Article II, Sec 1: “In case of the removal of the President from office, or of his death, resignation, or inability to discharge the powers and duties of the said office, the same shall devolve on the Vice President, and the Congress may by law provide for the case of removal, death, resignation or inability, both of the President and Vice President, declaring what officer shall then act as President, and such officer shall act accordingly, until the disability be removed, or a President shall be elected.”
Article II, Sec 1: “Before he enter on the execution of his office, he shall take the following oath or affirmation: - “I do solemnly swear (or affirm)( that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Amendment XII: “And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice President shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President.” (Note: this clarifies that the disability is a constitutional disability - that is, that the Constitution itself disables a standing President from acting as President.)
Amendment XX, Section 1 and Section 3: “The terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January... and the terms of their successors shall then begin”....... “If, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term of the President, the President elect shall have died, the Vice President elect shall become President. If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified...”
You have never addressed the fact that in Constitutional terms there is no recognition of a popular vote. For someone to be the President elect they had to have already gone through the process that Congress is involved in - counting the electoral votes and resolving issues if the electoral vote is split and thus results in no majority winner. The 20th Amendment lists separately the scenarios that the Pres elect has died or hasn’t been chosen. The part about the Pres elect failing to qualify is a different scenario.
A person can “fail to qualify” even after that process is all done. And a Pres elect can “fail to qualify” even though the VP elect qualifies. “Qualifying” is clearly something not related to the process but related to the personal circumstances of the individuals involved.
The only Constitutional disqualifiers from holding OFFICE (as opposed to disqualifiers from the execution of that office) is what is in Article II immediately preceding the first reference I cited in this post: “No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty five years, and been fourteen years a resident within the United States.”
How can Obama ever have been found to be eligible to the office of President if his age has never even been legally determined? It hasn’t. He STILL hasn’t “qualified”. Even if the whole world signed oaths saying that he qualified, Hawaii law, HRS 338-17, says that the birth certificate Hawaii’s got for Obama doesn’t mean anything legally if somebody just looks at it. It has to be presented as evidence to a judicial or administrative person or body and legally determined as probative before it means anything legally. So there is nobody in this world who can say what Obama’s LEGAL birth facts are, because they have never been determined.
Has any official body, any court of law or any legislative body RULED that Obama did not qualify for the presidency under any Article of or Amendment to the Constitution?
Has any member of the loyal opposition to Obama called for Congressional hearings on Obama’s ineligibility? At the end of every legislative day in the House of Representatives, each political party is alotted time to make speeches on any issue of concern to any member or issues of concern to that poltical party. Has any member of Congress made a speech to highlight the issue of Obama’s lack of qualifying for the presidency?
If the answer is yes: which official body, court or legislative body was it? You see Butterdezillion, the provisions of the Constitution must be enforced in the real world, not via posts on the internet.
If the answer is no: Isn’t it a fact that Barack Hussein Obama II has signed hundreds of pieces of legislation into law, appointed hundreds of people to governmental positions, ordered military personnel into harm’s way, ordered the withdrawal of combat forces from Iraq, carries the nuclear football with the launch codes to every nuclear missile in the US arsenal, and has entered into ratified treaties with foreign governments and that he continues to perform all of the above functions on a daily basis?
Whose job is it to inform President Obama that he did not qualify for the presidency before January 20, 2009 and that he cannot exercise the powers of the presidency and that Vice President Biden is the Acting President?
Wouldn’t it make sense to inform the candidate who received the most popular votes, the person who won a majority of the Electoral College votes, or the President-Elect that he did not qualify BEFORE Inauguration Day and the administering of the Oath of Office? Why didn’t that happen between November 4, 2008 and January 19, 2009?
If you can’t answer these questions then your “reading” of the Constitution is akin to reading “Little Red Riding Hood.”