Yes, but Arnold didn’t run for president, but rather Governor of California. The california constitution doesn’t rule out nationalized citizens.
And I know of no precedent that requires that one take active steps to renounce citizenship in another country when you become a nationalized citizen of the US, or that one commits perjury if you retain citizenship in another country. In the immortal SDMB taunt: please provide a cite (other than your opinion) that this is perjury.
And of course, the rule that the US president must be “natural born” may be in the constitution, but it strikes me as an unneeded provision that probably should be removed by amendment. However, I don’t really think it is a hugely important issue, I’m not hugely offended by it. Again, the proper body to disqualify a naturalized citizen or a dual citizen is not the court but the electorate.
And please don’t think I’m holding this position because I harbor fantasies about President Arnold. It is much more likely that the Democrats would benefit from this constitutional change than the Republicans. Take for example, Barak Obama. His father is Kenyan. Although I don’t know for sure and am just speculating, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that Obama has Kenyan citizenship. Would that disqualify him from holding elective office in your view? And of course we have lots of other immigrants and children of immigrants who live in this country and tend to vote democratic. Do you really want them to be barred from elective office?
“…abjure and renounce all fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen…”
I don’t see how it could be any clearer. The use of the past tense to describe foreign citizenship is particularly telling that retaining citizenship in another country is out of bounds.
If you don’t think there’s a conflict based on that, I doubt anything else would convince you either.
Nobody who retains foreign citizenship should be eligible for the Presidency, I don’t care if they’re the reincarnation of Franklin D. Roosevelt. You can’t even get a military security clearance if you’re a dual citizen. That might pose some difficulties for the Commander-in-Chief.
As far as immigrants or children of immigrants, if they’ve been in the country a long time, are clearly committed to its welfare, and have given up their foreign citizenship, I have no problem with them being elected to whatever. It’s the refusal to give up foreign citizenship that, to me, indicates that a person is not entirely on board with the United States.
I am less concerned about Schwarzenegger’s loyalty than I am about hypocrisy and doublespeak in the law. The way the Oath of Allegiance is written, the casual observer has the idea that the new citizen has cut all political ties to the past and has undergone a magical transformation into an American, just as American as anyone who was born here. If the government were honest, it would revise the Oath to something like, “I hereby declare that I want to live in the United States, but if things don’t work out, I may want to head back home, so I’m keeping my options open.”
No, what I want is some evidence that people who become naturalized US citizens but keep their old citizenship are criminals. As in, people being charged with perjury, or deported. Case law. News stories. Not just your opinion, which is very clear. I have an opinion, you have an opinion, but perjury is a crime, and I want some evidence that anyone has ever been prosecuted for the crime you allege.
As this is GD and not GQ, I’m free to contend that if the law permits dual citizenship or taking fake oaths, then the law is an ass. But as to your request for the facts:
There are two issues. One is whether S. committed perjury when he swore to abandon all allegiance to any foreign states, yet actually intended to keep his Austrian citizenship. Saying that citizenship does not imply allegiance is irrelevant hairsplitting. Citizenship typically carries certain obligations. For instance, Austria has mandatory military service. S. is too old to be eligible, but there’s nothing stopping Austria from drafting him if they suddenly need to raise an army. Keeping his citizenship means that S. is willing to serve if drafted.
The other is whether dual citizenship is permissible in the U.S. The situation appears complicated and contradictory. The military states flatly that “Person voluntarily acquires foreign citizenship” is grounds for loss of U.S. citizenship. This information from the State Department says that “the automatic acquisition or retention of a foreign nationality…does not affect U.S. citizenship.” Then about ten lines later, it says, "…the U.S. Government does not endorse dual nationality as a matter of policy because of the problems which it may cause. " In Schwarzenegger’s particular case, he took active steps to retain his Austrian citizenship, so it is not a case of “automatic acquisition or retention”. Also, dual citizenship is an absolute bar to obtaining a military security clearance, so it is difficult to see how a dual citizen could function as Commander-in-Chief without making a mockery of current policy.
No, it isn’t. If the US wanted to outlaw dual citizenship it could easily do so simply by inserting one or two additional words into the Oath.
Not necessarily. The likelihood of him being drafted is remote enough that it’s reasonable to assume it never even entered his mind when he decided to retain his Austrian citizenship.
Serving in the Austrian army most likely wouldn’t impact on his right to US citizenship anyway. Once again, please read this site. I really recommend you read that site, hyperelastic, because you seem extremely unclear about the US’s de facto policies on dual citizenship.
And of course, the President doesn’t have to pass a security clearance to hold the job. We the voters decide whether to trust him with secret documents, not the FBI, the CIA or the DoD.
But as you say, there are a couple of issues here that are being conflated.
The president (and by extension the VP) must be a natural-born citizen. Pretty clear. I disagree with this constitutional provision, but it would have to be removed by amendment. Probably not going to happen any time soon. And removal of the provision is more likely to benefit an immigrant candidate from the Democratic party than Arnold. But this is irrelevant to whether that naturalized citizen is also a dual citizen, since naturalized citizens are barred anyway.
Whether naturalized citizens can be elected to other offices. Clearly this is the case, naturalized citizens can be governors, senators, and cabinet secretaries.
Whether dual citizens can be elected to other offices. Clearly this is the case, dual citizenship does not bar running for elected or appointed office.
Whether naturalization as a US citizen neccesarily means that the citizen candidate must give up any other citizenships they might have. And this is clearly not the case. You may argue that it SHOULD be the case, that holding dual citizenship is treason or some such, but under current law and custom it is not. Arnold didn’t commit perjury, any more than the thousands of other naturalized US citizens who also retain their old citizenships.
Whether dual citizens should be rejected by voters if they run for office. Again, this is debatable. I don’t see any reason to automatically reject dual citizens. It strikes me as xenophobic. This is the 21st century, we live in a global economy. It is your right to reject such a candidate for any reason or no reason, but I think it is a foolish reason. This is pretty much the only proposition in dispute, and it is clearly a matter of opinion that isn’t going to be settled.
I disagree. The policies I linked above clearly distinguish between passively retaining citizenship in one’s native country and taking active steps to retain citizenship. The way you state the issue, one would think that Schwarzenegger only remains an Austrian citizen because he hasn’t gotten around to formally renouncing his citizenship. But that is not the case. In fact, the Austrian citizenship law states that obtaining citizenship in another country is normally grounds for involuntary loss of Austrian citizenship, which S somehow evaded. And the former governor of S’s home state is on the record as saying he pulled strings to allow S to retain his citizenship.
You must therefore believe that there are acceptable reasons for a Presidential candidate to refuse to renounce foreign citizenship. What are they?
I disagree. I was born in, and have lived my entire life in, the US. I have no citizenship in any other nation, nor do I have any desire to live in another nation. Do I have “allegiance and loyalty” to the United States of America?
I suppose a relevent issue here is whether or not anyone really gives two craps whether Gov. Schwartzenegger has dual citizenship or not, because I certainly don’t. OK, maybe the oath contained some technical inaccuracies, but so effing what? I don’t mean to be overly crass, but where is the pressing issue here? Anyway, how on Earth is Austrian citizenship going to interfere with his job as the Gov. of CA? What possible conflicts of interest might there be? Reduced tarriffs on Mozartkugeln? The institution of a superfluous State bank holiday called “Kaiserschmarren Day”?
Me too, and what’s more, it strikes me as a peculiarly American type of xenophobia. The idea that dual citizenship should disqualify you from holding public office would simply be unknown here, and I suspect in most parts of Europe, if not the rest of the world.
Almost all the others, including Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, Norway, Ukraine… limit dual citizenship to very limited circumstances, such as a decree from the head of state or to persons under 18. Several countries require that a dual citizen choose one or the other upon reaching 18. I found this interesting.
Are you guys totally oblivious to the concept of a conflict of interest? Having a dual citizen head of state would be akin to GM hiring a CEO who was still an employee of Ford. I honestly don’t get how you can be so blase about it. I do think the “average American”, i.e. the Republican blue-state base, will consider this a major issue. At least I hope so.
Point taken, hyperelastic, although I was actually thinking more of what the average European on the street would think about it, as opposed to what laws are on the books. I’m not convinced any of them would care if their laws changed.
The difference is that both being a CEO and being an employee require active and constant participation in those companies. Citizenship doesn’t, necessarily.
Also, I don’t think most countries are really in competition with each in other in the way GM and Ford are.
Hey, if Ford wants to keep paying the person for doing nothing of service to them, what skin off GM’s nose is it?
I guess I don’t understand how dual citizenship leads one to assume dual loyalty. Not only that, I don’t see how single-nation citizenship excludes dual loyalty. Aren’t there double agents and traitors enough to cast the latter assumtion in complete doubt? I mean, if you can simply presume dual loyalty because somebody has another passport, what does that say about you? Thinking back to WWII, we presumed, at best, dual loyalty on the part of some folks because their eyes slanted the wrong way, and tossed them into internment camps to add injury to insult. Xenophobia is the only way I can think of to characterize such baseless assumptions as “a person with dual citizenship cannot be trusted.” Could you please provide one good reason why that notion should be taken for granted?
If someone is drawing a salary from Ford, any reasonable person would presume that Ford is getting something in return, something that is probably not in GM’s interest. GM would never entertain the idea that perhaps Ford was paying this guy for no reason at all. Likewise, if someone actively pursues, or refuses to renounce, foreign citizenship, there must be a reason. If Schwarznegger were asked to renounce his Austrian citizenship, and he refused to do so, knowing it would hurt his chances of becoming President, there must be a damn good reason he wants to keep it. That, by definition, cannot coincide with the interests of the United States, because the United States and Austria are two different countries.
Your other assertions are straw men. There is a huge step between internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII and not wanting a dual citizen in high public office. And I have nowhere made a blanket statement like “a person with dual citizenship cannot be trusted.” As I have discussed in earlier posts, dual citizenship often involves someone who has naturalized but has not bothered to formally renounce a previous citizenship. I have no reason to doubt the loyalty of such people. Focusing on the particular case I originally brought up, I simply do not think it would be in the interest of the United States to elect a President who has actively pursued citizenship in a foreign country, or chooses not to renounce foreign citizenship he may have passively acquired. It ought to be against the law.
OK, sorry about the blanket-suspicion assumption, by why does an active desire to keep dual citizenship automatically connote conflict of interest? Again, I just don’t see why it’s necessary to assume a negative motive. If I had dual French/US citizenship, It might make getting a job in France much easier. What if I wanted to work in France some day? Is that bad? If I think it would be cool to be Governer of Rhode Island this year, and when my term is up, move to France and be the Mayor of Nice, why is this a problem?
Again, I’ve yet to hear of one conceivable thing that the Governator might get out of dual US/Österreich citizenship that would cause a conflict of interest. It seems like there’s still an assumption that anyone who would want such an arrangement must be up to no good.