Posted on 09/27/2011 5:48:51 AM PDT by tutstar
A Guyana-born naturalized American citizen fits the Federal Elections Commission's requirements to run for president, the FEC announced in a ruling.
The case involves New York lawyer Abdul Hassan, who was born in the South American country in 1974. Hassan argues it is discriminatory to not allow him to run for office.
Responding to criticism of possible dual-loyalty issues, Hassan said in a radio interview that a person's place of birth should not determine his patriotism or presidential eligibility.
"I am an attorney," he said. "When I undertake the representation of a client, I have to act in the best interests of my client," Hassan stated on "Aaron Klein Investigative Radio" on New York's WABC Radio.
Read more: Washington reinterprets constitutional eligibility http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=348933#ixzz1Z9xy0pso
(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...
WND is full of crap - there is a reason they didn't link to the memo in their article, as it completely undermines their assertions.
This is why, long ago, I put WND at the same veracity level as supermarket tabloids. Heck, even the National Equirer does better.
Godwin's Law applied at post #29.
On the contrary, I am always happy to see an arm of the government take the proper care and respect that they do not exceed their authority as delegated to them by the proper Constitutional bodies. I don't want every two-bit bureaucrat substituting his or her opinion on Constitutionality over the laws as passed by Congress -- if Congress is wrong, there are more proper ways to fix that.
Bingo.
Unless I’m confused naturalized citizens have run for President before. In one of the recent Democratic campaigns I believe one was allowed to show up for the Democratic debates.
He was, of course, one of the minor candidates, sort of like Mr. Cain before last week.
We are all subordinate to the Construction, but we don’t all have the same powers of enforcement. Congress doesn’t have the powers of the president, and here doesn’t have the powers of the SCOTUS.
Do you really want a regulatory agency determining who can, run?
“It is a tyranny of fear combined with rule by the bloodless.”
Couldn’t agree more.
The problem is, NOBODY has the job of determining eligibility
I googled around a little, and the amount of misinformation on this whole topic is astonishing.
Almost every article starts with a statement along the lines of, “naturalized citizens have the rights of every other American citizen except they cannot run for President.”
This is factually incorrect. Anybody, including Arnold Schwarzenegger, Justin Bieber and Vladimir Putin, can run for President, if that means going around and asking people to vote for them. There is no law and can be no law against running. Freedom of speech and all that.
The person running, as the FEC said in this case, would have to follow the laws with regard to campaign finance where they apply, just as would any other candidate.
A non-eligible person can run. He/she just can’t serve if elected, which isn’t particularly likely, of course.
Though quite a few believe we elected an ineligible candidate last time. (I’m not among them, BTW).
Bingo. The 800 pound gorilla in the kitchen.
The Founders intended for the President to be elected in truth rather than form by the Electoral College, which would of course make its members responsible for ensuring eligibility.
Since the EC quickly became only a rubber stamp, the mechanism for determining eligibility defaulted in practice to the voters, who in the last election just weren't interested.
WND will round up whoever to take this to where it needs to go the USSC.
N one will have standing :)
This explains why Obama didn’t take any public money in 2008.
That’s not exactly what the FEC said. In fact, what they did was punt. They denied the funds but said the act under which they operate does not give them the authority to make a further declaration. IOW, “it’s not my job.”
Godwin’s Law? You’d applaud the violation by ignorance of the supreme law of the land, the Constitution (natural born citizen), US statute law (misprision of felony) common law (using the authority of office to encourage a public fraud is at least official misfeasance). Yet you yell about a false-in-basis internet meme that call’s itself a “law”?
Utter folly.
Yep, the FEC most likely wouldn’t say he was ineligible but they would not have given him the funds, just as happened in this case. I wonder how the MSM would have handled that?
I’m not sure if the FEC would have denied funds or not. There’s no way to tell how they are defining the Constitutional requirement of natural-born citizen. It seems obvious, however, that Obama didn’t want to take that chance, and was assured through various deals (Soros) that he’d have plenty of money to run.
“The problem is, NOBODY has the job of determining eligibility”
But that’s equally true of every other political office. Candidates for US Senate don’t have to produce documentation proving that they’re citizens and at least 30 years old. Candidates for state legislatures, where you often are required to live in your district, aren’t required to produce documentation proving their residence. Affidavits are the accepted documentation for pretty much all offices.
And what’s the check on those candidates? Their opponents, their opponents’ supporters, and the state elections office. If a state legislative candidate suspects his opponent doesn’t meet the residency requirements, he can investigate it and, if merited, file a complaint with the elections office to have him tossed off the ballot. They do take ineligible candidates off the ballot when a legitimate and timely complaint is made. This can even be done on the Presidential level.
The same applies to the President. If there was any legitimate reason to doubt Obama’s eligibility, then a complaint could have been filed during the campaign by his Democratic opponents, or by the McCain campaign, or by anyone in a state that allows individuals to file objections with the Secretary of State. And I’m guessing that the Secretary of States won’t take seriously any argument that revolves around ‘The short-form birth certificate and the long-form birth certificate and the newspaper announcements are all forgeries!’
I agree, but who has standing to challenge this in a legal setting. A challenge to the current FEC will surely result in an affirmation of the ruling.
What is utter folly is the concept of letting unelected bureaucrats decide for themselves what is or isn't Constitutional, supplanting the authority of Congress who is granted that power (and responsibility) by the Constitution.
Or is it OK for those bureaucrats to do that, as long as you personally agree with it? It's only a problem when you disagree with the decision?
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