Posted on 05/22/2011 6:31:10 PM PDT by jdirt
MIAMI, Fla. – Are U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal natural-born citizens of the United States, and thus eligible for the presidency?
It's a simple question, but the answer may not be so easy.
The next national election is less than 18 months away, and both rising Republican stars have been touted as potential contenders for either the No. 1 or No. 2 spot on a presidential ticket.
But their eligibility is in doubt since both men's parents were not U.S. citizens at the time their future political children were born, WND can reveal. That factor is important because the Constitution mandates a presidential candidate to be a "natural-born citizen," a requirement that has dogged President Barack Obama since the 2008 campaign.
With 2011 being the apparent year of the birth certificate, Jindal this month released a copy of his own birth record, indicating he was born on American soil – specifically, Baton Rouge, La. – to parents who were born in India.
Based on that disclosure, the New Orleans Times-Picayune newspaper declared him to be qualified for the White House, stating, "Piyush Jindal was born at Woman's Hospital in Baton Rouge, a natural-born U.S. citizen, who like every other child born in America, could, constitutionally, grow up to be president."
Kyle Plotkin, Jindal's press secretary, echoed that proclamation, telling WND, "The governor is obviously a natural-born citizen."
Meanwhile, Marco Rubio was born in Miami, Fla., on May 28, 1971, to Mario and Oriales Rubio who were born in Cuba, though the senator has not released his birth certificate for the world to scrutinize.
Read more: Now popular Republicans 'not natural-born citizens' http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=297485#ixzz1N8MU2PlT
(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...
"Subjects" cannot run for King, so how is that germane? Native born has much in common with subjects. Natural born implies something more than mere citizenship.
Great point. It exposes the BS of those who claim that the Founders followed British common law on this issue. They did not.
If “native” or citizen is the very same thing as “natural born” then why did the Founders require that Senators and Representatives be “citizens”? Why did they use “natural born” only for President? Were they merely sloppy? Did someone just have a poetic flourish the day they wrote the part about President?
I would really like know why they used distinct wording for the same thing.
it is not the same thing.
naturalized is also a citizen.
born in the USA is native.
the only two distinctions. This is why arnold can be a senator but not president. (same as countless others.)
vattel is also not binding and is now a joke.
this has taken on the dimensions of the flat earthers who say lawyers are illegal because they have an esq after being licensed.
Again an excellent point.
Those who argue that anyone who slips across the border can produce a child who is eligible to be President never have a logical answer as to why such specific language was used in the eligibility clause for President.
A clearly lesser form of citizenship is required to be a Representative or Senator and yet the bar was clearly raised for President (Commander-in-Chief).
But then they want to claim that any foreigner could come in and produce an eligible NBC President.
It makes no sense at all and flys in the face of all logic.
It really is obvious that the Founders looked to Vattel’s definition of ‘natural born citizen’ yet there are some who so desperatley want this issue to go away that they will give up all principle in order to argue the point.
You are 100% wrong.
Even the Framers of the 14th Amendment understood that a ‘natural born citizen’ was someone with TWO American citizen parents.
what about the illigitimate where the father is unknown?
this can really be a rabbit hole.
so bastards with unknown fathers are ineligible?
somehow that does not seem valid.
nice try.
Just as there are always grey areas in the law, such as on the abortion issue whereas you have cases of rape and incest, there are on this issue as well.
That does not though change the FACT that a NBC is someone born of TWO American citizen parents.
Nice try on your part though of finding anomalies that would challenge the hearts of the Judicial branch.
Because they meant to make it clear naturalized citizens could serve in the House and Senate, but only citizens by birth could be President or Vice President.
There are only two kinds of US citizenship. Natural born, meaning citizen by birth, and naturalized, meaning not entitled to US citizenship by birth but made citizens by the process of applying for naturalization. Kissinger, Schwarzenegger, and Granholm are naturalized and thus ineligible. McCain, Obama, Jindal, and Rubio are all eligible, in the case of McCain because of his parents and, in the case of the others, because they were born here not of parents with diplomatic immunity.
It's germane because we derived our basic legal understanding and models largely from English common law. To quote the US Supreme Court:
The interpretation of the Constitution of the United States is necessarily influenced by the fact that its provisions are framed in the language of the English common law, and are to be read in the light of its history.
In America, we were to be not "subjects," but "citizens." That's the difference.
There are other freedoms and privileges of citizens that subjects do not have.
So yes, there's a difference between "citizens" and "subjects" between the two countries. In US v Wong Kim Ark, however, Justice Gray used their determinations of "natural born" (an adjective phrase used to specify a certain kind of either subject or citizen) as a model for ours.
He quoted Justice Swayne in Rhodes:
All persons born in the allegiance of the King are natural-born subjects, and all persons born in the allegiance of the United States are natural-born citizens. Birth and allegiance go together. Such is the rule of the common law, and it is the common law of this country, as well as of England. . . . We find no warrant for the opinion [p663] that this great principle of the common law has ever been changed in the United States. It has always obtained here with the same vigor, and subject only to the same exceptions, since as before the Revolution.
Gray also further quotes:
And if, at common law, all human beings born within the ligeance of the King, and under the King's obedience, were natural-born subjects, and not aliens, I do not perceive why this doctrine does not apply to these United States, in all cases in which there is no express constitutional or statute declaration to the contrary. . . . Subject and citizen are, in a degree, convertible terms as applied to natives, and though the term citizen seems to be appropriate to republican freemen, yet we are, equally with the inhabitants of all other countries, subjects, for we are equally bound by allegiance and subjection to the government and law of the land.
So it's germane.
All the more so, since all but 2 of the Justices concurred with the majority opinion by Justice Gray.
I will add, however, that we’ve never had a specific determination by the USSC of the definition of “natural born citizen” for the purpose of being President. I personally think the Wong Kim Ark ruling gets pretty close, and think that on that precedent the child even of two resident alien parents would be qualified. Although perhaps a dividing line might be drawn if they had not established a permanent residence.
No, but your excuse for the Constitutional distinction is.
Well, it doesn't seem to matter anymore. The Kenyan has been able to establish a new precedent.
"The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners." Chief Justice Morrison Waite, from Minor v. Happersett, cited by Justice Horace Gray as the meaning of natural born citizenship in United States v Wong Kim Ark
The conclusion you reach is not clear cut. It certainly does not address the Constitutional distinction for President and all other branches. It flies in the face of all reason to argue that "anchor babys" who never learn English and support the concept of "Aztlan" are "natural born. I suppose if you believe the Constitution can be amended by judicial fiat you may have a point.
going by the tinfoil hats here it would only be the father that has to be a citizen.
my example stands and demonstrates the absurdity of the position.
You're joking I presume. Read a history book.
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