Thinking on it and reading the review that is linked in the Tribe article, I think there is some validity to the originalist view presented there. I mean, it’s easy to argue that McCain, Obama and Cruz are true blue Americans so why would we ever disqualify them? But the qualification was put there for a reason. Imagine if the Rosenbergs had escaped to the USSR and raised a son there who moved back to New York at 35. Would everyone be so cavalier about the idea that he was eligible to become President?
Yes. I don’t believe in second-class citizenship. All Americans should be equal. I’m in favor of saying that any adult American citizen is eligible to run for president. I would expect the voters to winnow out the callow and inexperienced and those whose priority isn’t the well-being of the USA. (And how’s that last part working out for you in 2016, Dr. Drake? Shut up, you.)
Yeah, I knew somebody would bring that up eventually. 
But there’s a wide gulf between deciding on matters of election-day technical issues and yanking a candidate out of the race.
Besides, Gore threw in the towel when he could have fought on.
But what you believe doesn’t change the 35 year old requirement, so why should it change the natural born citizen part?
Oh, and my mistake. Rosenberg jr would have to have moved to New York 14 yrs ago. There’s a residency requirement too.
In theory, we have an amendable constitution. The USA is established solidly enough now that I think the need for those qualifications has been obviated.
Assuming this story is true, the answer is “no voting in a foreign election wouldn’t void one’s American citizenship”.
Huge numbers of Jewish Americans vote in Israeli elections without having to lose their American citizenship.
But you are kind of dancing around whether it should actually be amended. If an American was born and raised in China I have serious doubts everyone here would be quite as onboard with the idea that an American parent=eligible for President.
Certainly he would be eligible. It’s up to the voters to decide whether his background is congruent with what they want in a president.
Yes, it should be amended. Yes, even if that allows terrifying Chinese people to be elected.
No I’m not. I think it should be amended (in lots of places, not just here). I think the requirements are archaic and ridiculous, and the idea that living in another country compromises one’s loyalty is insulting and suggests insecurity.
If, as you say, people wouldn’t elect such a candidate anyway, where is the harm in letting him or her run?
I think the moment you become an American adult, whether by turning 18 in a Chinese orphanage, clutching the birth certificate with the names of your ill-remembered American parents, or by being naturalized after a lifetime of herding goats in rural Afghanistan, you should be eligible to run for president, and our Constitution should be changed to reflect that. Such people would never be elected, and that’s fine, but if they are Americans they should be allowed to run.
Oh, he would be white. Kind of blows the whole secret usurper thing if he actually looked Chinese.
I’m imagining a Venn diagram: “People who believe that Obama was ineligible because his father is not American and his birth in the U.S. is not sufficiently proven” vs. “People who vote for Cruz”. I bet there’s a LOT of overlap. I almost want Cruz to win the primary just so that 99% of birther voters will have to endure the cognitive dissonance of voting for Cruz over Clinton.
Part of the issue is that here, as in with well-regulated, cruel and unusual, and other such, the original constitutional framers seem to have had an “it’s bloody obvious what we mean, we don’t need to define it” habit. Blasted Common Law tradition… They mention “natural born citizen” in the Article II quals for the presidency but don’t define it anywhere, and they mention naturalization among the things to be legislated federally but that’s about it. The first citizenship law defined “natural born citizen” but within a decade it was replaced with a new one that did not, and none has ever since, instead referring to “citizens by birth” so most people assume this term encompasses the former.
(the framers themselves included a transitional loophole: you could be natural-born OR be an *original *citizen, a citizen at the time of adoption of the Constitution. Those held the chair into 1840)
Then in the 1860s the writers of the 14th Amendment defined that “all persons born or naturalized IN the U.S. and subject to the jurisdiction” are citizens (but their point at the time was about the “*all persons *” bit, so there would be no domestic caste of people excluded from the right of citizenship). It did give constitutional standing to jus soli “soil birthright” citizenship, but it is nonexclusive (see following paragraph) and the framers of the 14th did not see a need to establish a concordance with Art. II. So you’d think that logically those born in the USA are natural-born… but are ONLY those?
Well, the rub is, all the citizenship laws from the very start recognized one form or another of jus sanguinis (right of the blood) citizenship, meaning by descent. In effect then the Law recognizes two kinds of citizens-by-birth, one domestic and the other mostly extraterritorial. It was also eventually accepted as within Congress’ powers to have the population of a nonstate territory *legislatively enacted *into citizens, and the nonstate territory itself defined as “home soil” for citizenship-acquisition purposes. So it’s not only birth in the 50+DC that gives you citizenship without need for naturalization.
Actually the law that stripped the citizenship was repealed in 1978 by an act of Congress (heh).
WARNING PDF: http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/120532.pdf