The case for Bobby Jindal to be vice president (Washington Post column)

The Indian-American community can be a major source of campaign cash if they are activated to give. Picking Jindal as VP would ensure huge buy-in — figuratively and literally — from this community.

Jindal isn’t oozing charisma like New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie or Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. But neither is he labeled as a vanilla pol in the way that Portman and Pawlenty have been cast.

Jindal wouldn’t likely overshadow Romney — as Christie and Rubio clearly would — but neither would he be lumped in with the “boring white guy” pick that might not get Romney the sort of bump he is looking for.

There are other ways where Jindal is a sort of middle-of-the-road pick too. His resume — he spent several terms in Congress before being elected governor in 2007 — allows Romney to pick someone who knows how the levers of power work in Washington but who has largely built his reputation outside of the nation’s capitol. He’s an insider’s outsider. Or an outsider’s insider. Whatever. You get the point.

Remember that the first rule of vice presidential picking is “Above all, do no harm”. That means that a sort of “warm porridge” guy (he’s not to hot or too cold) like Jindal could have real appeal to Romney.

* A reform record: In his four-plus years in office, Jindal has built a very impressive record that would fit nicely with Romney’s promises to bring conservative principles to the federal government.

Jindal’s top priority coming into office was ethics reform — political corruption is as common as good beignets in Louisiana — and he got it done quickly. Jindal also pushed hard to reform the state's education system, an effort that won him praise from none other than the Wall Street Journal op-ed page.

The constitution does not define natural born citizen,

This argument is about as lame as it can be. They didn't have to define it. Everyone in the 18th century knew what the term meant!

Born of parents.... who themselves are U.S. Citizens. This disqualifies Marco, Bobby and Barack. This is not rocket science and I believe that both Marco and Bobby are thousands of times better qualified than the jerk who sits in the oval office.

Good grief people.....this is not a big secret. When I learned about the Constitution in 1954 (sixth grade) we had a young man who was born in this country (New Jersey, I believe) of parents who were displaced refugees from Eastern Europe. They were not citizens when this schoolmate of mine was born (they later became naturalized).

I'll never forget my teacher explaining the term "natural born citizen" and why our schoolmate could never ascend to the presidency......no matter where he was born because his parents were not citizens at the time of his birth (1942). He could be a Senator, a Representative....or a Governor....but he could never be the "Commander in Chief".

Friends....as far as I know.....no public school has taught the Constitution (in depth) for more than fifty years or so. This went by the wayside along with many other patriotic observances after Viet Nam..... and the harm it did to our country. Most people today know very little about things like this. They usually just repeat what they have been told by the evening news.....and those folks are (for the most part).....just stupid.

Like someone earlier had said......why open yourself for possible problems down the road? There are probably millions of people out there (born of U.S. Citizens) who are better qualified than Joe Biden. Barack's father.....of course was never a U.S. citizen....so where Barack was born is not even an issue. He's ineligible for that reason alone.

Unfortunately, previous court decisions have all but over-ruled the understanding “Natural Born” that you proposed.

CONSIDER:

* In 1875, U.S. Attorney General Edwards Pierrepont was presented with a query from the Secretary of State, Hamilton Fish. A young man, surnamed Steinkauler (his first name was never mentioned), had been born in Missouri in 1855, a year after his father was naturalized a U.S. citizen. When he was four years old, his father returned to Germany with him and both had stayed there ever since. The father has relinquished his American citizenship. Now the young man is 20 years old and about to be drafted into the German army. What is this young man’s situation as a native-born American citizen? After studying the relevant legal authorities, Pierrepont wrote:

“Under the treaty [of 1868 with Germany], and in harmony with American doctrine, it is clear that Steinkauler the father abandoned his naturalization in America and became a German subject (his son being yet a minor), and that by virtue of German laws the son acquired German nationality. It is equally clear that the son, by birth, has American nationality, and hence he has two nationalities, one NATURAL, the other acquired. .... Young Steinkauler is a native-born American citizen. There is no law of the United States under which his father or any other person can deprive him of his birthright. He can return to America at the age of 21, and in due time, if the people elect, he can become President of the United States..... I am of opinion that when he reaches the age of 21 years he can then elect whether he will return and take the nationality of his birth, with its duties and privileges, or retain the nationality acquired by the act of his father.

* The decision in Lynch v. Clarke was cited as persuasive or authoritative precedent in numerous subsequent cases regarding the term — NATURAL BORN, including In re Look Tin Sing,on the issue of whether the child, born in the U.S., to two Chinese parents (who were prevented by federal law from becoming U.S. citizens) was a U.S. citizen, notwithstanding the nationality of his parents or the fact that he had traveled to China with them and not returned to the U.S. for many years.

* The federal court held in a decision written by U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen J. Field) that he was a citizen by birth, and remained such despite his long stay in China, cited the decision in Lynch v. Clarke and described that case:

“After an exhaustive examination of the law, the Vice-Chancellor said that he entertained no doubt that every person born within the dominions and allegiance of the United States, whatever the situation of his parents, was a natural-born citizen, and added that this was the general understanding of the legal profession, and the universal impression of the public mind.”

* The Lynch case was also cited as a leading precedent in the U.S. Supreme Court decision in United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), which similarly held that the child born here of two Chinese parents was a birthright US citizen, and that decision also used the phrase “natural born”.

* In 1939 the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in the case of Perkins v. Elg, regarding a young woman, born in New York a year after her father became a naturalized U.S. citizen. However, when she was about four her parents returned to Sweden taking her with them, and they stayed in Sweden. At age 20, this young woman contacted the American diplomats in Sweden and, shortly after her 21st birthday, returned to the United States on a U.S. passport and was admitted as a U.S. citizen. Years later, while she was still in America, her father in Sweden relinquished his American citizenship, and, because of that, the Department of Labor (then the location of the Immigration & Naturalization Service) declared her a non-citizen and tried to deport her. The young woman filed suit for a declaratory judgment that she was an American citizen by birth. She won at the trial level, and at the circuit court - where she was repeatedly described as “A NATURAL BORN CITIZEN”

* Finally in the U.S. Supreme Court, where the court decision quoted at length from the U.S. Attorney-General’s opinion in Steinkauler’s Case (mentioned above) including the comment that the person born in America and raised in another country could yet “become President of the United States”.

____________________

As for Rand Paul and Allen West and Bachmann and Paul Ryan, YES I would whole-heartedly support their nominations, but the issue which was brought up is the issue of how we understand the term NATURAL BORN. Court decisions from over a hundred years ago have given us precedents that do not support the two-parents-must-be-Americans-at-birth definition.

The LEGAL principle of stare decisis now applies in practice.

When Vattel wrote his book "Law of Nations" in 1758 this was the definition:

"The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens. As the society can not exist and perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights."

Thirty years later when the Constitutional Convention convened...... this was still the definition.

John Jay (first Chief Justice) wrote this to the convention: "Permit me to hint, whether it would be wise and reasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government; and to declare expressly that the Commander in Chief of the American army shall not be given to nor devolve on, any but a natural born Citizen."

In 1857 the Supreme Court (Dred Scott decision) majority opinion quoted "Vattel"....word for word: “The citizens are the members of the civil society, bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority; they equally participate in its advantages. The natives or natural-born citizens are those born in the country of parents who are citizens. As society cannot perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their parents, and succeed to all their rights.”

So.......one hundred years after Vattel wrote his book and 68 years after the Constitutional Convention used his definition "Natural Born Citizen" to describe Presidential requirements.....the Supreme Court of the United States is still quoting that fact.

It is only recently (50 years) that elememts of our society have attempted to change this meaning.....for their own purposes. What could be their motive?

The examples you have provided are easily disassembled under scrutiny.....and have been many times on these threads.

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