The clause doesn’t mention marriage licenses, but it does mention records:
I ask this question out of a sense of pure civic-mindedness and disinterested patriotism, but…has anyone seen the original Official Act of Congress that admitted Louisiana to the Union as a state? You know, not just some cheap unofficial copy, but the one that bears the signatures of all the Congressman and Senators who voted to make Louisiana a state, the one that has the wax impression of the Great Seal of the United States attached to it, and was written on the Special Official Parchment that only Official Acts of Congress are written on.
I mean, if Louisiana was never actually admitted to the Union, we can hardly let them go around having representation in the U.S. Congress and casting votes for President of the United States in the Electoral College and so forth.
If any citizen can challenge a candidate and no one can meet the standard in the bill, then LA would give up its right to vote in national elections. Go for it!
Has anyone here seen a birth certificate from a Louisiana resident? Does it typically include “the date and place of birth, the names of the hospital and the attending physician, and signatures of the witnesses in attendance?”
So the Constitution is just a guideline?
We would also need the official documentation that let them back in to the Union after they tried like hell to leave. I don’t think anyone could fault the rest of the U.S. if that documentation proved hard to find.
IANAB (I am not a birther) but . . .
One thing that came out of the contraversy was that few states actually have systems in place to ensure the presidential candidates are qualified. Most admitted that they put on the ballot whomever the major parties put in as their candidate. Another point is that some non-NBCs do run for office and are put on ballots. I don’t think that it is a bad idea for a state to require a candidate on their ballot to prove eligibility for the office that they are seeking. As for Rep and Senator candidates to show their birth certificates, I would assume to see if they meet the age requirement of the office.
Put it this way, is it unreasonable for me to have to submit a copy of my teaching license when applying for a job?
These laws are being written in such a way as to specifically exclude one candidate they want to prevent from being on the Presidential ticket in 2012. They aren’t just saying “prove your citizenship,” they’re defining “proof” in a way deliberately designed to exclude certain kinds of proof, A passpoprt is proof, and a “certificate of Live Birth” is proof, but those wouldn’t count under these laws. They aren’t looking for people to prove their citizenship, they’re looking for a way to keep Obama off their ballots under the pretense that he hasn’t proven his citizenship according to their own gerrymandered criteria.
If they want to say a candidate has to prove his citizenship, that’s fine, but they shouldn’t be able to arbitrarily legislate that certain kinds of proof aren’t really proof. If a state says a candidate was born in that state, then another state doesn’t have a right, under the full faith and credit clause, to deny that.
Another thing lost in all of this is that the fact that Obama would still be a NBC even if he hadn’t been born in the US. His mother was a citizen, so it’s a completly moot point.
Oh, if only.
Afraid there is no way to control them. Except maybe to call them what they really are - racists. The ‘birther’ business is all a dodge.
This article appeared in the Denver Post today, about Hawaii’s birth index data that is available to the public.
What I found most infuriating is the last part of the article, in which is states that latest polls indicate that 67% of Republicans either don’t believe Obama was born in the U.S., or don’t know. SIXTY-SEVEN PERCENT. That’s not just a random handful of nutbags, that’s the majority of one of the two major political parties in this country.
This is probably not true. The Supreme Court hasn’t ever ruled directly on the point, but they did note in Schneider v. Rusk that
The Court also ruled in United States v. Wong Kim Ark that
The Court then adopted the English common law definition of “natural born citizen,”:
Granted, none of these cases specifies what exactly the case would be for a person who was born in a foreign country to US citizen parents. There are three possibilities, as I see it: first, such a person would count as a “naturalized citizen” and be ineligible for the presidency. Second, the person would count as a “natural born citizen” and be eligible for the presidency. (The Court’s acceptance of English common law on the subject argues against this interpretation but doesn’t specifically preclude it, because if a person is “natural-born” in England if born in England to French parents, he is presumably not natural-born in France.) Third, such a person is in neither category and rather is a “citizen”, not natural-born, being born elsewhere, or naturalized, having been a citizen since birth, but is a third category of citizen indistinguishable from “natural born citizens” except that they cannot become President.
There’s never been an explicit statement of this from the Supreme Court, so it’s difficult to say exactly what the law is, but your statement that “Obama would still be a NBC even if he hadn’t been born in the US.” isn’t exactly true.
appleciders,
I disagree with this assertion:
France is in no way be bound by British law. They are sovereign and can consider anyone they wish to be “natural born” even if it contradicts British law.
The US has always treated foreign born children of US citizens as NBC’s. It;s not going to stop now. Besides, if that doesn’t count then John McCain is not a NBC.
You’re right. I’m using this as an example. I might have been better served to use as an example two countries that both use the English Common Law system, like Britain and the US. What I meant to show was that if the phrase “natural born” refers to the place a person is born, not his legal citizenship status, as the English Common Law seems to imply, then that person probably can’t be natural born in two countries.
As far as I can tell, the only legal difference between a foreign-born citizen (born to American parents, not naturalized) and a US born citizen is the eligibility for the presidency. And really, either the US has always discriminated against foreign-born citizens citizens this way or the issue has never come up, because none has ever run for president to be denied the chance.
As to John McCain’s birth, wasn’t he born on a military base? Military bases and consulates are usually considered the territory of the country that maintains the base or consulate, not the country that leases or sells the land for the base. Likewise, the English Common Law definition makes an exception for “the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a foreign state, or of an alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the child was born.” A soldier in a peaceful overseas post might also be considered a diplomatic agent, satisfying the definition.
There is no such legal difference.
[conspirobirther]Except that Hawaii can not prove that it is indeed a state.[/conspirobirther]
I wonder what portion of the 67% is due to people thinking that Hawaii isn’t part of the US. I mean, by definition we’re dealing with stupid people here.
Frankly, I’ve provided a legal justification, including Supreme Court cases, and you’ve done nothing but assert that you’re right because you say so. I’m done here unless you’re going to actually debate.
You’ve provided nothing but wild speculation. In practice, the children of US Citzens have always been treated like NBC’s, and there’s zero chance your theory would hold water if anyone wanted to challenge what has always been recognized and practiced.
The children of *one *US citizen have always been NBC’s or treated as such as long as they get registered with the US consulate. The legal document is Certificate of Birth Abroad.
Actually, I can understand the reason why a passport can be considered not a definitive proof of citizenship. A passport is issued on the basis of supporting documents including an official birth certificate. The passport does not definatively prove that the birth certificate was valid. It’s a bit of catch 22 but I can understand it.