Posted on 12/07/2008 10:08:01 AM PST by vietvet67
The government should have an affirmative duty to investigate candidate qualifications and to make public any documentation thereof; after all, when they apply for the highest office in the land, they should be held to the strict constitutional standard and every citizen has a right to see that the Constitution is followed. Certain elements of the blogosphere have recently paid a tremendous amount of attention to the question of whether or not the state of Hawaii should be required to produce the original birth certificate of president elect Obama. Regardless of claims that this is a red herring, or assertions that Paul Berg is a crackpot who should be ignored because he is a “911 truther,” the certificate should be produced. Secondly, Berg’s suit should be taken seriously, and his standing to sue should be affirmed.
While the courts have generally looked with disfavor on suits such as his, they have been wrong to do so, and they should allow this suit for a very simple reason. When no one else, i.e. government agencies, is enforcing the law of the land, only private citizens may do so, and the only manner in which they may do so, short of armed insurrection is in the courts. Within this context, Berg is effectively acting as a “Private Attorney General” acting on behalf of all of the citizens of the United States. He does so because the Federal Election Commission, the other candidates and the U.S. Attorney General have done nothing to determine Mr. Obama’s eligibility. All of them could have and should have. The situation is similar to that which occurred in 1968, when the Peace and Freedom Party submitted the name of Eldridge Cleaver as a qualified candidate for President of the United States. California Secretary of State Frank Jordan, discovered that according to Mr. Cleaver's birth certificate, he was one year short of the required 35 years needed to run. Cleaver was removed from the ballot and Jordan’s actions were upheld in the courts.
The concept of the private attorney general has existed for a long time. Frequently, it has been found in class actions where someone seeks to force the government to follow its own rules. The courts have frequently allowed private attorney general lawsuits to proceed where civil rights violations are concerned. This situation is not significantly different, as the rights of the entire population to see the constitution followed should trump any other consideration. We must ask, if the government is not going to enforce its own rules, then who will, if the courts say that private citizens cannot.
As I have not seen Berg’s paperwork, I cannot state whether or not he used this approach in his petition, and if not, it may have been a fatal error. None-the-less, Berg is right in making his request and his suit should be allowed to proceed because he is certainly asserting a case based on reasonable doubt, and a presidential candidate should be required to prove that he or she is eligible for the office they seek. And, the government should have an affirmative duty to investigate candidate qualifications. After all, a person seeking much lower privileges, such a driver’s license or voter registration must produce a birth certificate; why not a candidate for the highest office in the land. Which situation implies a higher duty by government officials; state statutes or the national constitution?
A second approach, favored by Dean John Eastman of Chapman University Law School, which he discussed with Hugh Hewitt on the Salem Network, December 3, 2008 is based on the corporate law principle that the shareholders can sue to force the officers or directors to follow the corporate charter or bylaws. The Supreme Court has never accepted this view, with respect to constitutional issues, either. Its view that citizens have no standing has allowed it to dodge difficult issues where the Constitution is concerned, despite the fact that they should undertake enforcement of the “supreme law of the land” as Chief Justice Marshall put it many years ago.
The state of Hawaii is asserting that privacy laws forbid it from revealing the certificate. This should be considered a bogus claim. Anyone running for the presidency has placed himself in the arena of a public, rather than a private citizen. A candidate is, for all practical purposes, giving up his privacy rights, and making his or her entire life open to scrutiny by the public and the press. Their personal records should and must be part of this. If Obama supporters are allowed to investigate and report on “Joe the Plumber” with impunity, the public has an equal and reciprocal right to investigate a candidate.
There is a second and even more important reason why the certificate must be produced. As Berg’s suit, and those of other parties have pointed out, birth status is a constitutional requirement to hold the office of president. If this rule is not followed, then it brings into question the issue of whether or not any aspect of the Constitution, at all, must be followed. Already we have seen challenges in the courts and in the overall media environment of certain government actions. Whether we are dealing with establishing the Federal Reserve Bank, removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq, or bailing out the financial and automobile industries, people have valid questions. Sometimes it is not enough to say “you have no standing to sue” or “this is covered under the legislative interstate commerce clause and is settled law.” It is a slippery slope argument, but such arguments are not invalid simply because of the foundation they are built on. The courts should regularly review such actions to prevent legislative power from running unchecked. The intent of the framers of the document should carry significant weight in such review.
As for the Obama birth certificate, I, personally, have no interest in the thing beyond silencing the argument over it once and for all. If the certificate is never produced, and proper birth status is never verified, one way or the other, it will likely become the core of another Great American Conspiracy Theory such as those surrounding the death of John F. Kennedy. The Kennedy assassination conspiracies have been debunked, for all practical purposes, but they haven’t gone away. We don’t need another one of these things. We need openness, we need transparency and we need honesty. If there is a valid certificate, stating all of the relevant information as the state of Hawaii asserts, the Supreme Court or any other court should support its production for public view. I doing so, it can state a compelling public interest; the interest that the Constitution must be followed, and that anyone who seeks office governed by the Constitution must prove their eligibility, or it calls constitutional authority into question. In fact, every candidate from Hilary Clinton to Rudy Giuliani should have been required to produce their certificates when filing as candidates. The matter should not be subject to question because of the constitutional requirement.
Paul Berg isn’t entirely a crackpot. His case has merit, as do the others seeking production of the certificate. If it is produced and everything is in order, the case disappears along with the conspiracy theorists and the office of the presidency goes on without a hitch. If it is not produced, the potential for future complications could be very significant. We might even end up with President Ahhnold, who could claim that he wasn’t really born in Austria, and that he doesn’t have to prove he was born here. See what I mean?
Politics: General, Constitutional Issues, Civil Liberty & Rights, Elections & Political Parties
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Steven D. Laib is a semi-retired attorney living in Cypress, Texas, just northwest of Houston. He is a member of the California State Bar, and United States Supreme Court Bar. slaib@intellectualconservative.com http://intellectualconservative.com
Wonder if any federal employees from Hawaii have ever had to produce a valid cert. If not, you were singled out and should sue! If they did,then the state of Ha. can’t very well say that originals can’t be released.
Why are so many people so anxious to make Joe Biden president?
Obama has not been elected yet. Biden cannot be Vice President in this case.
The Electoral College can vote for anybody to be President once Obama is disqualified!
Not exactly.
You are specifically asked if you have loyalties to another government/person/organization, and dual citizenship would indicate you do.
Access to classified information is limited, obviously, and even non-classified information or technology that is restricted due to ITAR is witheld from you, a dual national.
Being married to a foreign national is not an automatic disqualifier. It does make the adjudication process more complicated, as the threat to you is greatly enhanced: Say your wife has relatives in an unfriendly (or even “friendly”) country, and that country threatens the relatives unless YOU give up information. See? You may likely not divulge information, but granting someone a clearance with that possibility must be seriously examined. Being naturalized makes you an American citizen, you have taken the oath. Now, like before, you may be subject to blackmail/threats, so the adjudication process must be carefully done.
Hope that helps.
Yeah you’re right. Lets pick and choose which laws we want obeyed.
Is the court to stupid to ask 0 to produce a BC, just to see if he suddenly develops a medical condition that requires him to step away for the good of the country without ever showing the BC?
We're not. Biden's Secret Service code name might as well be "Poison Pill," as far as that goes.
But, there are future consequences, arising from allowing this to go forward unchallenged. Think of potential, worse, presidential candidates, that could be allowed as a result of precedent.
That is why the more stringent "natural born" eligibility requirement is there, to ensure a President who actually identifies with and cares about his or her own country. The requirement has never been tested in a court of law. Obama will be the first, assuming at least one of the many plaintiffs is found to have standing.
Standing, like beauty, is sometimes in the eye of the beholder.
“..........t will likely become the core of another Great American Conspiracy Theory such as those surrounding the death of John F. Kennedy.......”
Close but not quite. It’s as if the true and final answer to who killed Kennedy and why, the full story, were behind a closed door, but on a technicality that door was kept locked. Not every element exists to solve the Kennedy story, but from the get-go every element exists to settle the Obama imbroglio.
Opening the Obama door now would send the country into an uproar. The Judges would never be able to pass a “serene” judgment. The culprit was that lower judge who decided that “we the people” have no standing. For self-evident reasons, this question should have been settled before the election, perhaps even before the primaries, but definitely before the General Election.
Instead they were asleep and the Mack Daddy played the law like a fiddle
Why is security clearance so much less stringent, for those working on code for certain defense systems, then? We’ve been hearing, for years, about problems with Chinese programmers in that area.
I have been planning for that eventuality.
Very historic.
In many ways. It's a pity that the DNC didn't have more respect, to make sure that the first black winner of a U. S. presidential election, historic in and of itself, wasn't potentially tainted. But, then again, very few Democrats give a flying fig about the Constitution, so it begins to make sense. A surprising number of nominal conservatives don't seem to care, either. It's been eye-opening.
I tried to find a political black democrat that wasn't tainted. Name one!
I can think of quite a few, who are eligible under the Constitution.
Whether we would find their political views desireable in a President, is another matter.
Is that true about their argument, or is it just your surmise?
I'd be inclined to think that "state's rights"or the separation of powers may be at work here. If you favor an activist judiciary overturning state regulations, fine. That seems to be the way things are going. But should that be the case?
If we are going to go down that road, does "the public" really need to know whose parents were legally married and whose weren't?
Part of the problem is that Hawaii did allow people who weren't born in the state to get birth certifications. If they didn't, if that abuse weren't a possibility, would there still be a case here?
It seems unlikely, doesn't it? I recall a few speeches given by Barack Obama, wherein he consistently referred to Palistinians as "we," and Israelis as "them." He clearly sees Israelis, and possibly Jews in general, as "other."
The getaway is much more than expensive, according to “The StatBulletin” the only estate which fits the description of where he will be renting is the Paul Mitchell estate. The price per day of rent for the property is a whopping $8,250! Story can be seen here:
Jr can’t pay for a long form vault copy of his birth certificate but can pay an outrageous sum for his vacation in Hawaii during an economic downturn. Whatever happened to his share the wealth? sarcasm intended!
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