Posted on 10/20/2011 1:47:23 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Unable to prevent Barack Obama from becoming president, rigid followers of the Constitution have turned their attention to another young, charismatic politician many think could one day occupy the White House.
The birthers are calling for U.S.Sen. Marco Rubio, the budding Republican star from Florida.
"It's nothing to do with him personally. But you can't change the rules because you like a certain person. Then you have no rules," said New Jersey lawyer Mario Apuzzo.
Forget about allegedly Photoshopped birth certificates; the activists are not challenging whether Rubio was born in Miami. Rather, they say Rubio is ineligible under Article 2 of the Constitution, which says "no person except a natural born citizen … shall be eligible to the Office of President."
The rub is that "natural born citizen" was never defined.
[snip]
"It's a little confusing, but most scholars think it's a pretty unusual position for anyone to think the natural born citizen clause would exclude someone born in the U.S.," said Polly Price, a law professor at Emory University in Atlanta who specializes in immigration and citizenship.
Price said natural born was likely drawn from the concept that anyone born in what was once a colony was considered a subject and parental status was not a factor.
But there is sufficient muddiness to fuel the birthers, many still angry with the Republican establishment for not taking their case against Obama more seriously. Rubio was among them, saying he did not think it was an issue.
"The other shoe has dropped," conservative figure Alan Keyes said on a radio program last month. "Now you've got Republicans talking about Marco Rubio for president when it's obviously clear that he does not qualify. Regardless of party label, they don't care about Constitution. It's all just empty, lying lip service."
[snip]
(Excerpt) Read more at tampabay.com ...
Native is a higher standard. If you qualify as native you also qualify as natural born. So you don’t really have a point here...
Fair point. Perhaps I shouldn’t have capitalized the terms.
It had plenty of weight behind it. The definition of NBC was given to satisfy what the term means within the Constutition in Art II Sec I, and it was given in rejecting Virginia Minor’s argument of being a citizen by virtue of the 14th amendment. It was then quoted and affirmed more than 20 years later in Wong Kim Ark, where Justice Gray noted that the Minor decision unanimously excluded children born in the country of citizens from the citizen clause of the 14th amendment. Virginia Minor was declared in Gray’s citation as a citizen by virtue of BOTH jus soli and jus sanguinis criteria. It was strong enough that Gray could NOT declare Wong Kim Ark to be a natural born citizen and instead had to find other means in which to say that Ark had become a citizen at birth. IOW, Ark was the type of citizen for which there was doubt. For NBCS, as Minor states, there was NEVER doubt.
The quisling liar stated in post #64, “Seems quite clear to me that Natural requires only birth within the jurisdiction (US birth) while Native born requires birth to US citizens ...” but now it is trying to flip the coin and play the opposite. You cannot grant this lying vermin the honor of responding to it. It is honorless since it is laying word games in alinskeyesque style. To enter into reasoned exchanges with a lying agitprop who twists your words and flips meanings at will is a waste of time and grants the fool more honor than it is due.
It was merely dictum in Minor. The point in Minor was not to define the term natural born citizen for purposes of the natural born citizen requirement but rather to determine whether the 14th Amendment mandated that women have the right to vote as US citizens. Bingham drafted that Amendment about 80 years after the term was used for the presidency requirement which means it may or may not actually view the term “natural born citizen” similarly as the founders. Further, the term “natural born citizen” nowhere appears in the 14th Amendment. The Amendment merely states “[a]ll persons born or naturalized in the United States”; that is it protects the rights of citizens. The natural born issue was not important to the holding in Minor and thus merely dicta with no real weight beyond possibly being persuasive.
It was also merely dictum in Wong Kim Ark.
No. It states that but then proceeds to say that there are questions as to whether one born in the US but of non-citizens is natural born. It ultimately doesn’t resolve that issue but only says there is less support for it. It merely states that it is unquestionable that US born children of US citizens are natural born (they also qualify as native born) but some have questioned whether one who is born in the US but not of citizens is natural born. It doesn’t say one way or the other on the issue just that some have argued over it and thus is it is less established or clear than if both requirements were met. And again, this is just dicta anyway.
No it wasn't. This specifically addressed Minor's citizenship AND rejected her 14th amendment citizenship claim:
The question is presented in this case, whether, since the adoption of the fourteenth amendment, a woman, who is a citizen of the United States and of the State of Missouri, is a voter in that State, notwithstanding the provision of the constitution and laws of the State, which confine the right of suffrage to men alone.
Her citizenship is a key part of the question ... and a key part of the argument as framed by the court.
The argument is, that as a woman, born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, is a citizen of the United States and of the State in which she resides, she has the right of suffrage as one of the privileges and immunities of her citizenship, which the State cannot by its laws or constitution abridge.
The citizenship argument is framed as being due to the citizen clause of the 14th admendment. The SCOTUS unanimously rejected this argument.
There is no doubt that women may be citizens. They are persons, and by the fourteenth amendment "all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" are expressly declared to be "citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." But, in our opinion, it did not need this amendment to give them that position.
This isn't just referring to Minor's citizenship, but women as a class. The court justifies its opinion (note it strictly says this is the court's OPINION, so it's not simply dicta) by proceeding to explain how people became citizens prior to the 14th amendment. After defining NBC, the court explains how native women and children are distinguished from alien women and children through the original naturalization laws. It concludes the citizenship argument (which constitutes roughly half the decision, pun intended) by again rejecting the 14th amendment for V. Minor and women in general who meet its definition of NBC.
In this respect men have never had an advantage over women. The same laws precisely apply to both. The fourteenth amendment did not affect the citizenship of women any more than it did of men. In this particular, therefore, the rights of Mrs. Minor do not depend upon the amendment. She has always been a citizen from her birth, and entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizenship. The amendment prohibited the State, of which she is a citizen, from abridging any of her privileges and immunities as a citizen of the United States; but it did not confer citizenship on her.
As for Wong Kim Ark, again, it's not simply dictum. Gray expressed the impact of the decision as showing that the Supreme Court, through post-14th amendment decisions, was "committed to the view that all children born in the United States of citizens or subjects of foreign States were excluded from the operation of the first sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment ..." The "committment," Gray said, is "manifest from a unanimous judgment of the Court ..." The Minor decision was that unanimous judgment. Here is how Gray officially affirms Minor AFTER citing its NBC definition:
Minor v. Happersett (1874), 21 Wall. 162, 166-168. The decision in that case was that a woman born of citizen parents within the United States was a citizen of the United States, although not entitled to vote, the right to the elective franchise not being essential to citizenship.
When Gray says the Court has expressed a commitment through a unanimous decision that DEFINES NBC, then gives that definition and affirms a FINDING based on birth in the country to citizen parents, it is NOT "merely dictum."
There is more proof from WKA that Minor rejected the 14th amendment for NBCs:
In Minor v. Happersett, Chief Justice Waite, when construing, in behalf of the court, the very provision of the Fourteenth Amendment now in question, said: "The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that."
I'll simplify this: When Minor construed the Constitution, specifically the citizen clause of the 14th amendment, the court said it did NOT say who shall be natural-born citizens. This shows specifically how NBCs were EXCLUDED from the birth clause. The Minor decision relied on an NBC definition from OUTSIDE of the Constitution and OUTSIDE of statutory law. Its definition is a verbatim match of law of nations. Again, it's not dictum because it goes to the heart of the question, the argument and the finding of the court in BOTH of these landmark cases.
rubio ping NBC?
No it doesn't. It says there are doubts about the CITIZENSHIP, not whether they are natural born. Read it:
Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first.
Note it says includes AS CITIZENS. It does NOT says includes as "natural born citizens." The previous definition was also framed as just becoming citizens:
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.
BOTH definitions are about only about persons becoming citizens, not specifically about becoming natural-born citizens. The NBC part was added as a characterization because that definition matches the law of nations definition that says this same thing, and because there is no doubt about this class of persons.
“Plus all that quoted dictum in Minor says is that it is clear that at least someone who was born in the US and has 2 citizen parents is a natural born citizen- SOMETHING THAT I DON”T THINK ANYONE IS ARGUING AGAINST. It’s where one of those elements is missing that is at issue...”
Aw, but you arguing against it.......!!!!!!! I know, I know you left yourself an out by adding “...that at LEAST someone...” To my mind an intellectually dishonest qualifer.
And the issue is.....(simple) born citizenship, or, as you quote..... “Some authorities go further and include as CITIZENS children born (born citizens?) within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first (where they defined NBCs).”
To repeat...the court is talking about citizenship NOT NBC which they have already defined earlier in the quote.
In other words, the Justice is saying that Natural Born Citizens ie those born in country to citizen parents are undisputably CITIZENS, but there is a question about CITIZENSHIP where the circumstances of being Natural Born are not present.
Again, the decision is talking about citizenship, born citizenship....of which being Natural Born is one of the most common, but questionably not the only form of, born citizenship. The case, because Minor was indeed a citizen, having been born in the US to citizen parents, and therefore a NBC, left questions about other forms of born citizenship for future cases where that would be at issue.......
The 14th Amendment and the USSC Decision Wong Kim Arc resovlved (partially) the issue of born citizenship (no need to naturallize) for persons that were NOT Natural Born (and therefore undisputably) Citizens. The WKA Decision did not declare Mr Arc to be A Natural Born Citizen, as your previous posts would suggest, but did declare him a born citizen...just as the children of former slaves were, per the 14th Amendment.
Re-read your first sentence of your post and compare it to your other posts. They do not jive!
You have left yourself open to charges of being both a liar and a disrupter/Obama appologist......well deserved I might add.
So Marco Rubio and Bobby Jindal are natural-born citizens eligible to become president, as is John McCain.
++++++++++++++
And, if your well reasoned and well documented argument is correct then millions of anchor babies are also elgible to be President even if they were raised from shortly after birth in another country.
That doesn’t sound like what the Founding Fathers were after.
It also seems curious that they would use different terms for what appear to be identical citizenship requirements as qualification for the Presidency and for Congress.
What has Rubio ever DONE to suggest that he is REMOTELY qualified for national office?
Yikes!
Scratch that last paragraph vis a vis Congressioal requirement for holding office. I was off the reservation on that one.
“If you qualify as native you also qualify as natural born.”
Confusing because there are people who interchangeably use the terms “native” and “native born.” Depending upon context they are not same.
Example....native born could mean born in a locality...jus solis only... a child of illegal immigrants born in LA County General is native born.......while Native implies being born locally (in Country) to citizens parents..........jus solis + jus sanquines....
A Native, born in country to citizen parents is undisputably a Natural Born Citizen whose citizenship flows naturally from his birth on the soil of his citizen parents.
Using these terms loosely, as most disrupters do, is a sign of an attempt to confuse the issue in the minds of the reader. I’ve seen it often in the past few years as the Organizing for America/Obama crowd invaded FR. They stick out like a sore thumb......
I read yesterday that their intent wasn’t to flee Cuba for life. Their hope was that things wouldn’t go as badly as they did and they could return home. They came here in the ‘50s and waited ‘til ‘75 to bother with citizenship. They weren’t any too anxious to become citizens.
No allegiance to Castro but an allegiance to Cuba.
A child born in the U.S. to illegal aliens (called an “anchor baby” because, once the child is 18, he or she can bring his parents into the U.S. legally) is indeed a U.S. citizen at birth under current law. The fact that an “anchor baby” can be raised outside the U.S. and still be eligible for the presidency if he returns to America as an adult (so long as he has been a resident of the U.S. for at least 14 years) is but one ridiculous result of the current law that provides birthright citizenship to anyone born in the U.S. even if their parents are illegal aliens. Congress should amend the law so that only the children of citizens or legal permanent residents (not the children of persons with student visas or tourist visas or of those illegally in the country) are U.S. citizens at birth.
Of course, such new law would face a legal challenge, since it would run afoul of the prevailing (though incorrect, IMHO) interpretation of the first sentence of Article I of the 14th Amendment, which provides that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the state wherein they reside.” I would posit that the children of persons who are not legal permanent residents of the U.S. are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S., and that Congress could legislate to limit birthright citizenship as I proposed above. But to make it clear that the law does not violate Section 1 of the 14th Amendment, I would have Congress pass the law pursuant to its power under Section 5 of the 14th Amendment to “enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of” the 14th Amendment. If the law withstands the court challenge, it will finally get rid of just about all of our “anchor baby” problems (going forward, of course, since those born in the U.S. before the law was changed were conferred citizenship upon birth), including the possibility of a child of illegal aliens (or tourists) being eligible for the presidency.
Applying for citizenship is only the beginning of the process. Doesn't the process have to complete, up to and including being sworn in as a citizen, before you can call the person a citizen?
-PJ
Citizens by your definition could and have done the same.
Rubio is eligible.
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