Arizona’s governor has vetoed a “birther bill”, which would require that presidential candidates prove their US citizenship before being allowed on the ballot, but Louisiana (and others) are still considering.
I’d love to see it happen, because I’d love to see Barack Obama walk into the Office of the Louisiana Secretary of State in Baton Rouge, with his candidacy filing papers in one hand and his US passport in the other.
Louisiana would then have to either (a) go on record as believing that Obama is indeed a US citizen; or (b) go on record as believing the US State Department is not competent to judge a person’s citizenship.
They already did, along with the 49 other states and DC in the last election. It doesn’t matter to Birthers. Somehow Obama magically conned everybody but them.
Since the States and DC individually determine who will be on their ballots (within the rules provided by the Constitution) and since Obama was on every ballot it’s implicit that in 2008 every state believed he met the eligibilty requirements.
It’s also implicit that the 110th Congress (and Dick Cheney acting as President of the Senate) agree that he meets all of the eligibily requirements as they oversaw the casting of the Electorial Votes.
Personally I feel that if Obama did do what the Birthers claim and somehow bribed, conned or blackmailed all 50 states and the entire 110th Congress you might as well let him be president if he wants to. He clearly controls it all anyway. Of course I’d then expect him to have accomplished more, but I’m not a Birther.
Louisiana’s bill doesn’t allow the use of a passport. It only allows “an original or certified copy of the candidate’s birth certificate that includes the date and place of birth, the names of the hospital and the attending physician, and signatures of the witnesses in attendance.”
So they’re preemptively stating that the State Department can’t judge someone’s citizenship. And that anybody who has a birth certificate that doesn’t meet their conspiracy theory-based guidelines isn’t a full citizen. And that Louisiana has the power to decide what birth certificates from other states are valid and which ones aren’t.
(Are there any states that put “witnesses in attendance” on birth certificates?)
Since any naturalized citizen can have a passport, that, in itself, proves nothing. But the place of birth is listed on the passport and that does. But many “natural-born citizens”, as that phrase is currently understood, were born outside the US. E.g. John McCain and my two younger children (along with my oldest, they were born in three different countries).
But here is a curious turn. Listing the presidential candidate on the ballot is not something any state has to do. AFAIK, every state does, but they legally could just list panels of electors. And leave it to the electors to determine eligibility.
My birth certificate, issued by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, shows only my name, date of birth, and my parents’ names. No witnesses, not attending physician, nothing else. Not even the name of the hospital. No amount of evidence would convince a birther anyway. They just feel in their bones that Obama is not American.
Well, Wisconsin doesn’t, at least for a birth certificate originally issued in 1970 and certified copies of which were made in 1995. My mom signed as an “informant” (whatever that is), and her OB signed as the “certifier” (“I certify that the above named child was born alive at the place and time on the date stated”). It does have the hospital (with a note on the form that the address of the place of birth should be given if it wasn’t in a hospital), but not a specific place for the attending physician to sign except for the “certifier” blank.
It’s a photocopy of the original document, so if Wisconsin switched over to computer-searchable documents/records - like Hawaii did - I suspect they might well look like the comparatively sparse document that Hawaii ended up with. I might guess that they may learn from this and try to preserve all of the original blanks, except that the phenomenon of “doctor handwriting” comes up - even the printed name of Mom’s OB is pretty scratchy, and forget trying to decipher his address! Perhaps that was one reason Hawaii only gives the parents’ names, place of birth, etc.
I wonder what Louisiana would do about some future president whose mom doesn’t make it to the hospital in time, and the baby is born on the side of the road somewhere.
Ideally, this birther nonsense would never have been an issue. The only useful purpose it’s serving is providing an easy means of spotting a candidate who’s unfit to hold elective office. That and it demonstrates on an ongoing basis that Barack Obama has never done anything real that his opponents can use against him.
But we apparently are stuck with it. And that being the case, I’d like to see birther bills get enacted. Let the birthers establish an objective standard that they consider proof. Then Obama can meet their standard and maybe we’ll be able to move past this foolishness.
Of course, that will probably keep any birther bill from ever being enacted. The birthers don’t want to establish a test they know Obama will pass. They want to be able to keep claiming he would fail the test if it existed.
Here is a link to a Factcheck.org site showing photos of the certified birth certificate. As far as I can tell, it doesn’t include the name of the hospital or attending physician or witness signatures.
If I’m reading that Louisiana bill correctly, then if you can’t produce the required documentation, you cannot be listed on the ballot as a candidate for President, U.S. senator, or U.S. Representative.
I wonder how many people have witnesses’ signatures on their birth certificates? The only signature on my PA birth certificate is that of the state registrar. No witnesses and no attending physician.
What about people who were born without an attending physician? Is your mother having an obstetrician (as opposed to say, a midwife) really a requirement for being considered a natural born citizen?
As the bill reads it would probably disqualify a large percentage of potential candidates of both parties. Maybe Louisiana would just sit out federal elections. It would serve them right if they passed such an idiotic bill.
Actually (speaking as a Democrat) I’d like to see birther bills get passed just because I think it’s to the Democrats benefit to drag this nonsense out as long as possible. It’s a wedge issue that divides the Republican party: every candidate has to either side with the loonies, or risk the wrath of the loonies.
davidm: Actually, the points you bring up are, collectively, the intelligent bit of the bill: They provide a near-insuperable barrier to anyone the law is applied to, while a bit of discretion prevents it from being applied to anyone the people in charge either want to win or don’t think can win. Imagine… a race between the latest Republican golden child and a Green Party candidate who can’t get his own parents to vote for him. It’s perfect!
So the question then is who has standing to file an objection? The SOS? The AG? The candidates? Any registered voter? Any citizen of Louisiana? I have no idea.
Even if only state officials can file an objection this could still come back to bite them in the ass at some point.
The proposed law also requires a birth certificate for candidates for the Senate and the House. Presumably, a birth certificate from Kenya is fine, as neither office is barred to naturalized citizens.
I think even in today’s partisan atmosphere, nobody is going to get away with enacting a law that makes Democrats have to provide documentation while giving Republicans a pass (or vice versa). So any test that Barack Obama will have to pass will also have to be passed by his Republican opponent. That means if some legislature creates a ridiculous standard (“candidate must have his birth certificate legally notarized by somebody who was present in the delivery room”) they might end up disqualifying Huckabee or Palin or Romney.
I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating. None of my three children have a “birth certificate.” They all have an official copy of a “certificate of live birth,” which doesn’t have any space for a witness’ signature, but that WAS issued to them by the sovereign state of Missouri.
On top of that, my daughter’s certificate wasn’t signed until the day after she was born, and my sons’ weren’t signed until THREE days after they were born!
And if that ain’t good enough for Louisiana, tough noogies!
I have a sneaking suspicion that whether it’s good enough for Louisiana (or any other state with a similar bent) will depend on the candidate’s skin color and/or political affiliation.
As I said in another thread on the subject, I happen to have a certified copy of my original birth certificate with everybody’s signatures — and it’s of no use whatsoever for official purposes. If I had tried to present it when applying for an enhanced driver’s license (sort of a mini-passport good for travel within North America), I would have been laughed out of the Department of Licensing office. Only a Certificate of Live Birth — virtually identical in format to the one Obama released — was acceptable as proof of my status as a native-born USian. The reason: only that form has a reference number that can be used, and in fact was used, to cross-check with the state database. As far as the SoW is concerned, I could have bought the other at a Mexican flea market (a claim that one of the Usual Suspects on the local rag’s comment board made regarding Obama’s certificate).
