Sorry if I bore you with a non-EMS, political post. I’m really not doing much of anything on the ambulance these days.
So I spent a shift with a political clown today. One of those “fringe” guys that seem to be so prevalent these days.
“Obama isn’t even a legitimate president because he isn’t a natural born citizen.1”
“Oh, so you don’t think he was born in Hawaii?”
“Dude, it doesn’t matter, his father was born in Kenya, so that means he isn’t a ‘natural-born citizen.’”
Wow.
I was dumbfounded. I really can’t believe there are people out there who have such a difficult time grasping simple definitions. I am certainly not much a fan of our current president, but I would never argue that he was an illegitimate president.
Who did Obama run against in the 2008 primaries? The Clintons2. Well, there was also the rest of the field: Gov. Richardson, Rep. Kucinich, Senators Gravel, Dodd, Edwards, and Biden, but most importantly, Senator Clinton, and the “Clinton Machine.”
Seriously, if Obama isn’t a natural-born citizen, or if he was ineligible for the presidency, does a rational person really believe Bill Clinton would have allowed him to run against, much less defeat his wife?
Not that lunatics are rational.
Not to mention the utter chaos that would be created if Obama was not eligible to be president, but became president anyhow. How many laws, appointments, nominations, etc… would be completely nullified?
You should see the smoke coming from their ears when they hear that Governor Romney isn’t a natural-born citizen under their definition, either. Yeah, Mitt Romney’s father was born in Mexico, so he would fail a similar smell test.
I am very ready for this to be over with.3
1. Since I wanted to be a lawyer, I will use the Black’s Law Dictionary definition of “Natural Born Citizen” which is ‘A person born within the jursidiction of a natural government.’
2.Yes, I am aware that the “birther” conspiracy actually began with the democrats when Clinton supporter Phillip Berg filed a lawsuit in 2008. See: Berg v. Obama
3. I could go on and on an on and on about how out of touch these fringe people are, but really, what’s the point? Is it November 7th yet?
Plenty of nut jobs on both sides of the aisle. The left wing ones came out when GW Bush was President. Remember there were no terrorist attacks on 9/11/2001, Katrina was a conspiracy to kill black people, and on and on.
I still run into people who don’t believe that 9/11 was not planned, though I haven’t run into anyone who says anything about the hurricane other than the response which they deem was purposefully bad to try to kill blacks.
Some of the issues with the Constitution come from the archaic issues that were caused by the fact that we had just been liberated from England and they were wrestling with the way to construct a nation and determine citizenship at that time. The same thing occurred with the 14th Amendment that was designed to insure that recently freed male slaves would have a constitutional right to vote. That’s where the issues over “born here, a citizen of the U.S.” and anchor babies and such came into being, though they didn’t know it at the time. An unintentional consequence of a Constitutional amendment.
It’s a grand old American tradition, the conspiracy theories in election politics. Didn’t Thomas Jefferson accuse John Adams of wanting to reunite with England, and Adams said Jefferson wanted to make the U.S a French colony? Back in 1796?
And they were friends!
Sorry to break it to you, but that political nutjob was right, pretty much. A natural born citizen has to have citizen parents at the time of his/her birth. It doesn’t matter where the parents were born, it only matters if the parents are citizens, naturalized or whatever at the time. A natural born citizen also has to be born in the United States or one of its incorporated territories.
The US Supreme Court case of Minor V Happersett gives what I consider the basic definition of “Natural born” –
“Additions might always be made to the citizenship of the United States in two ways: first, by birth, and second, by naturalization. This is apparent from the Constitution itself, for it provides [n6] that “no person except a natural-born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President,” [n7] and that Congress shall have power “to establish a uniform rule of naturalization.” Thus new citizens may be born or they may be created by naturalization.
The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. 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. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their [p168] parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first. For the purposes of this case it is not necessary to solve these doubts. It is sufficient for everything we have now to consider that all children born of citizen parents within the jurisdiction are themselves citizens. ”
Those doubts about the citizenship of children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents have been pretty much resolved by various congressional enactments granting citizenship at birth to children under various circumstances (See title 8 of the US Code – Nationals and citizens of United States at birth.) According to USSC in Rogers v Bellei (1971), all citizenship resulting from a congressional enactment is a form of naturalization. Title 8 citizens are naturalized at birth through statute, so they aren’t natural-born citizens. The Minor case pretty much defined Natural Born Citizen as being ” all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens.”
Citizen at birth and natural born citizen aren’t necessarily the same thing. All natural born citizens are citizens at birth, but a citizen at birth isn’t a natural born citizen unless they were born in a country of parents who were its citizens.
“Right, pretty much.”
I can only presume that you concur with the statement that President Obama is ineligible? If so, that is simply ridiculous. There is absolutely no requirement for the parents of a candidate to be born in the United States. None, whatsoever. If there were such a requirement, than Chester Arthur never would have been president (his father was born in Ireland), Charles Curtis never would have been Hoover’s Vice President (he was born in Kansas Territory before it was a state, and he was not a ‘natural born citizen), Obama never would have won the Democratic Nomination (daddy born in Kenya), and Mitt Romney would be sitting at home watching football, because he wouldn’t be elligible either (his father was born in Mexico).
You cite Minor v. Happersett, but fail to mention that Minor was a case which held that women did not have the right to vote. You also fail to mention that Minor was subsequently overturned by the 19th Amendment.
You should probably see US v Wong Kim Ark and Lynch v Clarke for deeper insight, as Lynch was a lower court decision that was cited by the SCOTUS in Wong. From Lynch:
Hmm, it looks like my reply got lost. I’ll try it again……
” There is absolutely no requirement for the parents of a candidate to be born in the United States. None, whatsoever.”
I agree. The parents of a natural born citizen must be citizens at the time of the birth of the child, they don’t necessarily have to be born in the US, they can be naturalized citizens, like I said above.
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“Charles Curtis never would have been Hoover’s Vice President (he was born in Kansas Territory before it was a state ..”)
The Kansas Territory was an incorporated territory of the United States. ” A natural born citizen also has to be born in the United States or one of its incorporated territories.” again, as I stated above.
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“Mitt Romney would be sitting at home watching football, because he wouldn’t be elligible either (his father was born in Mexico)”
Mitt Romney’s father was born in Mexico, but he was a US citizen at the time of Mitt’s birth in the United States. Again, the parents don’t have to be born in the US, they just have to be citizens of the US.
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“Obama never would have won the Democratic Nomination (daddy born in Kenya)”
If Obama’s daddy had become a citizen of the United States, there would be no problem with Obama’s eligibility.
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“You cite Minor v. Happersett, but fail to mention that Minor was a case which held that women did not have the right to vote.”
Minor V Happersett did not hold that women didn’t have the right to vote. It was a case which held that no-one’s right to vote was guaranteed by the Constitution, and that it was a matter for each State to determine.
“Being unanimously of the opinion that the Constitution of the United States does not confer the right of suffrage upon any one, and that the constitutions and laws of the several States which commit that important trust to men alone are not necessarily void, we AFFIRM THE JUDGMENT.”
In order for the court to consider the question, they first had to determine if Virginia Minor was a citizen and entitled to the protections of the privileges and immunities clause, and the equal protection of the laws clause. Since she was born before the passage of the 14th amendment, she wasn’t a 14th amendment citizen, and they had to determine her citizenship before they could proceed. That is where the quote of the case comes in – determining her citizenship and giving the definition of natural born citizen.
The 19th amendment created federal jurisdiction over the right to vote in saying that suffrage could not be limited because of gender. It overturned only that portion of the decision. States still determined who had the right to vote in their state, they just couldn’t abridge it because of sex.
The determination of Minor’s citizenship still stands. The 19th amendment didn’t make her a non-citizen.
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The New York Legislature in 1859 overturned Lynch –
The political code of the State of New York (1859) Page 51.
http://books.google.com/books?id=l3w4AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA51#v=onepage&q&f=false
where the children of transient aliens were not considered citizens of the state.
If they were even remotely thought to be constitutional natural-born citizens, instead of being considered citizens by a whim of a local court, this political code would never have passed the New York Legislature.