11. Birthplace - Kenya, East Africa
Posted on 04/29/2011 8:20:29 AM PDT by Sub-Driver
GOP bill would require birth certificates from presidential candidates By Debbie Siegelbaum - 04/29/11 10:02 AM ET
A GOP lawmaker will introduce legislation in the coming weeks to require any candidate running for president to file a copy of his or her birth certificate with the Federal Election Commission.
“It’s the right thing to do and it’s long overdue,” Rep. Bill Posey (R-Fla.), the bill’s sponsor, wrote in an email to The Hill.
Posey insisted the legislation is not “solely” directed at President Obama, who has battled charges that he was not born in the U.S. and is ineligible to serve as president since before he entered the Oval Office.
“This legislation has never been about one candidate,” Posey wrote. “It’s been about addressing something that’s come up at least seven times before. With its passage, this won’t be a distraction for anyone in the future.”
Posey previously introduced the legislation in 2009, when Democrats held the House, but it could have a better chance of moving forward now that Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) is Speaker.
Obama this week sought to put to rest questions about his birthplace by releasing his long-form birth certificate, which shows he was born in Honolulu. He said the country should move on from the “silliness” of the birther controversy and cease paying attention to “carnival barkers” like Donald Trump.
Trump, who is considering a run for the presidency, has repeatedly questioned whether the president was born in the U.S. This seemed to have an impact on opinion polls, which showed an increasing number of Republican voters harboring doubts about where the president was born.
Republican strategists worry their party could be hurt by talk about Obama’s birthplace, which many in both parties see as a fringe issue. At the same time, many Republican officeholders are loath to criticize the birther movement.
Posey said his legislation would put an end to controversies about whether a candidate is eligible to serve as president, sparing the nation from the sorts of distractions surrounding Obama.
If his bill became law, Posey said, the firestorm over whether Obama was born in Hawaii and can serve as president would have been “resolved discreetly” prior to the 2008 campaign.
Posey’s bill, first introduced in March 2009, would amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971. It would require a presidential candidate’s principal campaign committee to include a copy of the candidate’s birth certificate with the committee’s statement of organization.
The bill would also require that a candidate for president establish that he or she is a citizen eligible to serve as president by providing documents proving he or she has been a U.S. resident for 14 years, and that he or she is at least 35 years of age.
When Posey’s bill was introduced in 2009, Democrats held the House, and it subsequently languished in the Committee on House Administration. It was co-sponsored by a dozen members, including Reps. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.).
Asked if he thought the bill would have a better chance in the GOP-led 112th Congress, the lawmaker hedged: “I think Congress should deal with it and move on.”
In arguing his bill is not directed toward Obama, Posey said eligibility questions also came up with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who was born in the Panama Canal Zone.
“A number of major media outlets were happy to make Sen. McCain’s eligibility a serious issue for him in 2008 just after he won the Republican nomination,” wrote Posey. “The issue hung over McCain’s head for months during the campaign and it could have been resolved when he filed for office.
“It says to me that we have no process in place to verify a candidate’s eligibility before jumping into a campaign,” he added.
Posey hopes to make the bill bipartisan, but declined to comment on which lawmakers will co-sponsor the reintroduced legislation.
A good first start.
We might not have an Obamanation in the White House if this had been in place previously.
`The Birthplace of President Obummer, with Facts, Pictures and Memorabilia`-
It will be an empty room.
Should not have to be in a bill...It is in the CONSTITUTION !!!!!!!!!!!!
This should have been SOP to check on every presidential candidate since the last “grandfathered” President.
Every congressional law passed that essentially "makes legal" What the Constitution already spells out and protects BYPASSES THE CONSTITUTION and thus makes it easier for a tyranical government to eliminate everything we call constitutionally protected freedom.
We've been hoodwinked because we don't think fast enough on our feet and are not loud enough with our voices.
I'm getting pretty pissed off at myself .. which ain't good because human nature is not very good at accepting 'blame'.
What’s next....asking voters for ID before the go into the voting booth?/sarc
“Republican strategists worry their party could be hurt by talk about Obama’s birthplace, which many in both parties see as a fringe issue.” ......... Since when is the Constitution a “fringe issue”?
And when will politicians start to realize that it is common practice to have to prove childrens ages for things like little league.
If it’s important for that, then why not for being president of the US....
funny how we need a law to enforce the Constitution
“...funny how we need a law to enforce the Constitution...”
If that’s what it takes, so be it.
While I agree with the sentiment behind your comment, it's simplistic. There are many provisions in the Constitution that have to be implemented, supported, and enforced by laws, and this is one of them. While the Constitution establishes the qualifications for being president, it does not (nor should it) establish the criteria for judging whether or not those qualifications have been met. That is more appropriately determined by law because technology and practices change over time. How a person's citizenship and eligibilty could be proven in 1787 is not how it would be proven today, nor how it will probably be proven 100 years from now. These changes can be more effectively dealt with in laws passed by Congress than by having to amend the Constitution every time new processes and technologies are adopted.
The very fact that it has not been SOP to vet the qualifications of every presidential candidate since the last "grandfathered" president is proof of the need for the law.
what is the point? If a BC is filed that shows a candidate is not a NBC and that is ignored, what difference will it make?
Agreed, for two reasons.
From the 2009 bill:
Congress finds that under section 5 of article II of the Constitution of the United States, in order to be eligible to serve as President, an individual must be a natural born citizen of...
1. The bill then goes on to suggest it is sufficient to define NBC on the basis of a birth certificate only. Although, BC's include the birthplace of the parents, foreign birthplace of the parents is not necessarily a disqualifier.
I.e., this bill does not provide the means for determing NBC status simply because more info on the citizenship of the parents is required. Until then, this is a leftis's dream bill and any anchor baby has a shot at the WH.
2. My copy of the Constitution does not have a Section 5, Article II.
Good point. So there needs to be some teeth in the bill, prohibiting states from adding the candidate to their ballot, and fining any person who authorizes the placement of such a candidate on their state's ballot. This solution, as I've stated it, may have some constitutional issues of its own related to states' rights, but that should be the essence of the solution.
The next step is for the American people to elect congressmen and women who take the Constitution seriously and who are not afraid to enforce it, regardless of their political persuasion.
(I guess I’m dreaming)
Before the Marxists came along, American candidates had a certain respect for the the Constitution, Bill of Rights and America. I would be very surprised any presidential contenders before The Clintoon, would have given any consideration to cheating on Constitutional requirements.
As I understand it, the designated leader of parties running presidential candidates must “certify” their candidate is eligible. Pelosi was the rat-in-chief responsible for performing this Constitutional duty. Even if the most recently released “Certificate of Live Birth” proves to be credible, Pelosi could not certify Onada eligible if no documentation was produced attesting to Onada’s citizen status.
Hawaii officials have claimed it is agsinst state law to release BCs. Onada has used this as an excuse to withhold that document from the public. This all begs certain questions: 1. Did all, some or no presidential contenders produce credible BCs in the past. 2. If not, how were they deemed eligible to be president? 3. Am I to believe no Hawaiian has a BC—or even obtsain to prove citizen status?
It seems to me there was a certain amount of personal honor attached to running for president before The Clintoon. Candidates simply did not run for president unless they met all Constitutional requirements. We know Marxists are devoid of honor, morality and/or ethics unless they play into their ideology—which they never do.
Therefore, I can only conclude the states who are fine tuning the eligibility process are doing the prudent thing. Apparently the demrats have launched their own counter to this in some states by redefining the definition of “native born Americsn”. If this is important to them it should be important to real conservstives.
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