In truth, I think about the only way this can, or will ever be addressed, is with the creation of a federal “candidate identification” law.
In essence, I suspect that the SCOTUS is rejecting challenges to Obama’s status for a very simple, and embarrassing, reason.
The Constitution of the United States is a framework for law, it is not itself “law”.
This is a pretty extraordinary thing to say, until you think about it. The US constitution establishes how government is ordered, it says very little about what is to be done if the rules are broken.
For example, when the 18th Amendment, alcohol prohibition, was passed, nothing happened. This is because congress *then* had to create federal law that “enabled” that Amendment to be enforced. Only when that had happened did prohibition actually begin.
And the congress, from the days of the founding fathers, never got around to creating enabling legislation to require the verification of a presidential candidates qualifications.
So in other words, though it says so clearly in the US constitution, *nobody* currently has the authority or responsibility to determine candidate credentials. Nobody in the government, not the president, the congress, or the courts, is authorized to do this.
Obama becomes president because of a loophole. A lack of federal law.
However, while this is frustrating, it is also very, very important that this law be carefully crafted. The implications are enormous.
To start with, this law could determine if Obama is permitted to stand for re-election. But it reaches beyond that.
“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.”
A federal enabling law must then take into account that “*someone*” has the authority and is responsible to:
1) Determine a candidate is a natural born citizen, and what “natural born” means. What records are valid to assert this, and since they are preserved by the individual States, who is authorized access to those records. This “someone” must be able to get those records even if the State government does not wish to provide them.
2) Determine that a candidate is at least 35 years old. This requires a medical determination and a sworn statement from a physician.
3) Has been a 14-year resident of the United States. Does this mean the *last* 14 years, *consecutive* 14 years, *concurrent* 14 years? Again written into the federal law. (Actually, this one makes sense, since a lot of our candidates are likely “military brats”.)
Until this is put into federal law, the US has a constitutional dilemma.
Ping to #59.
By this logic, we don’t have freedom of speech until law says we do.
I’m sorry to have to disagree on fundamentals. Had the Suprme Court done the job they were created for, We The People as individuals bringing suit, would have had standing to ask for the candidate to prove he is eligible according to Constitutional requirements. The Congressional branch chose to ignore the Constitutional Contract, the Judicial chose to ignore the right of the sovereign citizen to ask for proof of eligibility. So, the executive branch of this faltered government is now usurper of the sovereigns of the Constitutional Republic. What you describe is an effort to put the constitutional contract back together again once it has been pissed upon by the judici9al and congressional branches to establish an illegitimate executive, an affirmative action lying fraud who used his blackness to cower those in positions of responsibility into sitting down and shutting up. The spectale of Roberts swearing the bastard in TWICE ought to have shown US what was afoot. What a scam that was! Making a show of legitimacy, when the judge knew he was being asked by the actual sovereigns to vett this fraud and was actively ignoring thos repeated requests!
THEN, the Laws are established and Rules are written as to how to enforce them.
SCOTUS shirked its responsibility, and basically chickened out when it was needed the most. They were not appointed to make only easy decisions, or ones that are simply redundant of lower court rulings. They are there to make the tough calls, like Brown v. Board of Education, Engel v. Vitale, and Roe v. Wade.
So, I don't buy this argument that Federal laws have to be passed first before the meaning of Article II can be determined in the case of We the People v. Barack H. Obama.
Which came first? Laws against using extracted or involuntary confessions or SCOTUS decisions involving the 5th Amendment, such as Brown v. Mississippi, Chambers v. Florida, Ashcraft v. Tennessee, Haynes v. Washington, and, of course, Miranda v. Arizona.
Why is it that the language of the Constitution with regards to the qualifications of Presidential Candidates never required any Federal election laws to be passed before it was put into play to decide controversial elections?
The Presidential elections of 1800 and 1824 were decided on the basis of Article II of the Constitution and not pre-existing Federal law. Why would it not be equally valid to let the language of Article II on the NBC clause apply to the election of 2008?
All previous attempts to change the "natural born citizen" requirement to include "naturalized" citizens have failed, and the Supreme Court was not even called upon to render a decision.
The request for a Presidential candidate to provide proof of his Constitutional eligibility is not the least bit unreasonable. As to who should do it now, if not the Supreme Court, why wouldn't one or both houses of Congress be enjoined to request this proof of an elected President? Each State's Secretary of Elections could have made it a requirement, and should have made it a requirement, for all twenty-three (23) Presidential candidates on the ballot to prove their eligibility.
It is increasingly clear that what is at stake is that a Presidential candidate who has refused to prove that he is even a naturalized US citizen, let alone a natural-born one.
There are two extraordinary cases concerning the Supreme Court's involvement in two FOIA cases in 1991 that are relevant to the today's situation.
Freedom of Information Act lawsuits are exceptional in that a defendant agency loses its right to appeal an adverse order, and the case becomes entirely moot, unless a court "stays" that disclosure order pending the outcome of the agency's appeal. In each of the two cases raised before the Supreme Court in the Summer of 1991, a stay pending appeal had been denied at both the district and appellate court levels, necessitating the Supreme Court's intervention.
On March 29, 1991, Judge Marilyn Hall Patel ruled that the FBI's investigation of student political groups in the 1960's ceased to have a legitimate law enforcement purpose as of a certain date in 1965, thereby precluding any Exemption 7 protection for all individuals and confidential sources appearing in such FBI records generated after that date.
Judge Patel ordered the FBI to "reprocess" many of the requested files in a way that would disclose much sensitive information -- including information pertaining to exceptionally sensitive national security sources. See Rosenfeld v. Department of Justice, 761 F. Supp. 1440 (N.D. Cal. 1991). At the same time, Judge Patel flatly refused to issue a stay of her disclosure order pending its appeal through the ordinary appellate process.
The FBI therefore sought an emergency stay from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals but that court surprisingly declined even to consider issuing a stay, due to a procedural technicality which it thought left it without jurisdiction to grant such relief at that juncture. See Rosenfeld v. Department of Justice, No. 91-15854 (9th Cir. June 12, 1991).
So the Solicitor General had to file an emergency stay application with the Supreme Court, as a last resort before disclosure would be required. That application was considered first by Associate Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, as Circuit Justice for the Ninth Circuit, who took the unusual step of referring the matter for consideration by the full Supreme Court. Also unusual was that the Solicitor General submitted a classified affidavit directly to the Supreme Courtin support of the stay application.
On June 24, after a great deal of procedural activity, the Supreme Court granted the stay application unanimously. See Department of Justice v. Rosenfeld, 111 S. Ct. 2846 (1991). Most significantly, the Court chose not merely to grant a temporary stay until such time as the Ninth Circuit's perceived jurisdictional problem could be resolved. Rather, it took the extraordinary further step of granting a full stay of disclosure pending final disposition of all appeals, effectively bypassing the court of appeals on that critical procedural issue.
There was none of this bullsh*t "standing" business back then.
Yes..., indeed.
I’m seeing some quite intelligent posting on this subject. You’re the third one that has presented a very good argument, for what has happened...