This is not in GD since I don’t want to get into whether or not Obama is an NBC. But let’s say a representative (like Michele Bachmann) and a senator (like Lisa Murkowski) demand to see Obama’s birth certificate - the “vault” copy that proves that he was born in Hawaii and not the one currently being shown which is simply a Certication of Live Birth.
If Obama refuses, what would happen if objections were raised to the reading of the Electoral Votes? Is there any chance the objection would be upheld? Would there be any fallout for Congress if the objections were overruled and later it is found out that Grandma and the Tin-foil Hat Brigade were right and Obama was born in Kenya and the birth registered in Honolulu when mom got back?
If he refuses can Congress demand or subpoena the original birth certificate? Would the individual congressmen have standing to take it to court?
Why do you think a Certification of Live Birth does not prove he was born in Hawaii?
I was born in Honolulu in 1977, and while my birth certificate has a lot more information on it (not mine, but it looks like this), it is also called a Certificate of Live Birth. It is the document my mother kept as my “birth certificate”, and for every purpose where it was needed, it and my Social Security card served as proof I was born in Hawaii and was a US citizen. I never had any problems with it being used for that purpose.
If this isn’t the document that proves he was born in Hawaii, then I don’t know what document you expect to see.
Interesting question. First of all, I note that congress generally works by votes. Hence, I doubt having one senator/congressperson would be enough-in order to make the congress reject anything or make a demand, you’d need a majority of at least one house. Even if it’s just a committee acting, you still need a majority.
So in short, maybe a senator/congressperson could complain that they’d refuse to count votes until someone did something, and withhold their vote, but at the end of the day, it’d mean nothing without a majority.
Secondly, let’s look to the text of the twelth amendment, which shows that the role of congress is (if there’s a clear majority of votes), very limited and almost ministerial.
It looks like congress’ only role is counting the votes. It’s not even clear they vote on it if there’s a clear majority of ballots. And I would guess that if they refused to count the ballots, there’d be a constitutional crisis, but the party in the wrong would be the Congress-their responsibility is clear.
One thing the congress couldn’t possibly do is alter the result-Even if they didn’t like candidate A, or didn’t think he was eligible, there would still be 300+ electoral votes for A, and hence the congress couldn’t deny that there would be a majority (without baldfacedly lying).
Also, note that votes for president and vice-president are counted separately-so even if Obama (for whatever reason) couldn’t become president, Biden would get a majority of the electoral votes for vice-president, and would be vice-president (and hence automatically become president under Art. II/the 25th amendment).
One interesting, and perhaps relevant tidbit-nowhere in Article II or the twelfth amendment does it require the permission of the person the electors vote for. Hence, someone could be elected president if they didn’t want to be president. That’s why Sherman was being very precise (much more than a modern politician would be) when he said “if elected, I will not serve”–as he could very well be elected president without his consent (you’d need a bunch of electors, but that’s a different problem).
I think the same principle would apply if someone was ineligible-they’d get the most ballots, would formally be “elected” president, and then would be ineligible to serve, and hence under Article II (as amended by the 25th,) their vice-president would become president.
The house does get a vote if there isn’t a majority of ballots for one candidate.
But that’s not true here-so again, the constitutional crisis would be if the congress decided to “elect” someone president when someone else had a majority of the electoral vote. that would be, plain and simple, a coup d’etat, (as well as a constitutional crisis).
The state of Hawaii has already confirmed that the certificate exists and the the certiicate of live birth is already a perfectly valid proof of NBC. I don’t see how Congress would have any standing to demand it, and I don’t think Obama would have any say over whether Hawaii could produce the document anyway. I think it would be up to the state, not to Obama.
As the TFHB (Tin-foil Hat Brigade) has pointed out, under Hawaiian state law the document shown as proof COULD have been filed if Obama were born out of the country and his birth registered in Honolulu when they got back. If this were in fact the case, the Certification of Live Birth would look the same. The Birth Certificate is filed by the hospital and is the definitive proof that a person was born at that location.
And actually, the end of my second quote makes it clear the Twelfth thought of this:
That suggests that individual X would, if he received a majority of the Electoral votes for president, would become “president-elect”, and then, looking to the 12th’s mention of “other constitutional disibility”, the vice-president would be president. (and, as this was before the 25th Amendment, which was the first time the constitution set out what happened when a president was incapable of serving but still alive, the “disability” referred to here has to relate to the eligibility provisions of Art. II-at the time of the 12th amendment, there wasn’t any other “disability” that could make a president no longer president).
What’s interesting here is that you have to BE president to have a constitutional disability that lets the VP take over—reinforcing my conclusion that the sequence is: Election, Congress counts votes, A and B become president-elect and vice-president elect, and then A, on Jan 20th, cannot serve, and B becomes president.
another way of thinking of this-the constitution sets out eligibility rules for PRESIDENT. it sets out none for PRESIDENT-ELECT. Hence, it’s not an unreasonable reading of the constitution to say that the current governor of California could be** elected** president----he just couldn’t serve as president
and it could all be a CIA forgery from eight years ago, including amending every micro-film collection of newspapers to put a birth notice in the honolulu newspapers at the right time.
That’s not the point.
Maybe the best argument I have is burden of proof-there’s LOTS AND LOTS of material that is very strong evidence of the conclusion that Obama was born in the State of Hawaii when he claimed he was. (Birth certificate, confirmed as valid by the State of Hawaii (both as a formal document, and by a specific press release in late october), birth announcement, etc, etc)
That doesn’t mean it’s absolute proof (just in that there really isn’t ANYTHING that is)-for that matter, a “long-form” birth certificate wouldn’t be “proof” given some of the theories those gentlemen in foil hats have come out with–for absolute proof, you’d need to have been at the birth yourself-as even if we had the MD who delivered the baby alive, testifying, and providing pictures, we’re relying on him telling the truth.
Also, one pet peeve-people who complain that the certificate doesn’t have a raised seal, or is shown on-line, and hence could be fake–these could only be demonstrated by that person getting to see the ACTUAL BIRTH CERTIFICATE ITSELF–and Obama isn’t showing that to all 300 million of us in person. He’s going to (1) make a copy widely accessible (as he has done), and (2) get some reputable, independent people (say, the Governor of Hawaii, the Secretary of State of all 50 states, who put him on the ballot, and Factcheck.org) to verify that the copy available online is backed by an actual, official, state-issued certificate.
He’s done that. I think that’s much more than he had to, and just goes to show that he’s the kind of president I want-the kind who reaches out to all constituencies, not just those who support him, and tries to do what he can to satisfy what they’re asking for as well, even though he doesn’t have to.
I think it reflects very badly on the foil-hat brigade to just get louder and more obnoxious after Obama has not only done more than he had to, but more than any other candidate to date. (furthermore, although there isn’t any real question that McCain is a Natural-born Citizen, the question is legally more interesting and a lot closer than for Obama-as McCain was actually born on foreign soil (a navy base in Panama-and, as the current administration keeps telling us when talking about gitmo, such bases are NOT U.S. soil).
The Certificate of Live Birth says he was born in Hawaii. I think the tinfoil hatters are full of shit on that.
Anyway, the state of Hawaii has aready confirmed once and for all that he was born in hawaii.
The hell of it is, it wouldn’t even matter if he was born on the moon because his MOTHER was a citizen, so that makes him a natural born citizen, full stop.
Even if the state of Hawaii did produce the actual archived document for the mouth breeders to put their sweaty little hands on, they’d still say it was fake.
Hence the point of my GQ. The Senate asked McCain to submit paperwork in 2000 to show he was a natural-born citizen and he complied. What is Obama is asked for documentation and he refuses?
The senate has nothing to do with RUNNING for president-the 50 state secretaries of state decide who gets on the ballot in the general election (which is just a matter of the major parties filing their candidate’s paperwork, and the primary (which is as far as McCain got) is run entirely by the party.
the congress only gets involved when you have electoral votes, which is after the primary, the general election, and the electors getting together to vote.
Further, AFAIK, there aren’t any FACTUAL questions about McCain’s birth-everybody agrees where he was born. The question was whether those facts made him a natural-born citizen. No amount of paperwork will determine that-it’s a matter of the law in 1936 on what makes you a citizen by birth. That’s not a senate question, that’s a supreme court question.
Also, even if McCain was asked by some senators, I note that a request from individual senators -which may be impolite to refuse, but has no legal force, is very different from if the senate as a whole (or some committee) subpoenas you.
And as noted above, Obama has already provided lots of documentation, which has been endorsed by the State of Hawaii (twice) as genuine. If you don’t believe that, then what about holding the actual certificate will convince you?
I’m going to have to second the request for a cite that the Senate ever demanded McCain’s birth certificate. I’m calling bullshit on that.
Also, you’re aware that Barack Obama does not have access himself to his orginal birth certificate, are you not? He can’t produce it himself, no matter how much the knuckle walkers scream.
I’d also like to hammer home the point AGAIN, that Obama would still be a natural born citizen even if he was born in Osama bin Laden’s Saudi beach cabin.
This whole line of questioning appears to me to be nonsense. I was born in Pennsylvania. The hospital “Birth Certificate”, the one with my baby footprints, was lost years ago. The only official record of my birth is a Certificate of Live Birth, which looks very similar to Obama’s as seen on numerous web sites. There’s nothing in the least suspicious about it.
And as I note above, it’s not clear it even matters in the way the right-wing would like it to. The constitution seems pretty clear that Obama could be president-elect, even if he couldn’t serve.
That and the fact that the Twelfth amendment requires EV’s for prez and vice-prez be counted separately means that even if someone proves Obama is ineligible , Joe Biden, not John McCain will be the next president.
(of course, Obama is really ineligible… you can’t be a natural born citizen if you were born on the planet Krypton)
Actually, no. Citizenship isn’t automatic to all children of citizens; the parent from whom citizenship is inherited has to have been a resident of the United States for a certain number of years, a requirement which Obama’s mother could not have been in compliance with, since she was too young. So in the counterfactual hypothetical that Barack had not been born on US soil, he would not have been a natural born citizen.
Maybe I’m being overgenerous to say it’s not a nonsensical line of questioning-in the narrow sense that it is kinda interesting to ask what the congress’ role is in counting electoral votes, and if they have any discretion in the matter/ability to make inquiries. I like constitutional questions, and this is, while not a dramatic one, at least perhaps a little nonobvious.
To the extent that this question is just looking for an opening for the “obama’s not a citizen” brigade, it’s
uninteresting (as Obama is a natural-born citizen), and
not very helpful to the tinfoil brigade, as the conclusion of the interesting question is that congress doesn’t have much, if any power to control the counting of the electoral votes where there’s a clear majority for one candidate, and that they could only make a formal request for information/do anything else with a majority, which there isn’t to support asking for obama’s birth certificate.
Amusingly, there was a Superman comic book that actually addressed that. The DC canon is that he’s eligible, since he was flown here in a sort of pre-natal state, and wasn’t actually “born” until his spaceship was uncorked in Kansas. They didn’t even need that argument, though: US law states that a foundling of unknown origin is legally assumed to be a natural-born citizen of the state where he was found, and that status can only be challenged up until the foundling’s eighteenth birthday.
I wonder if this is due to a misunderstanding of the purpose of a “certificate of Hawaiian birth.” This is a type of birth certificate started in the early 1900s and ended in the 1970s, which, as far as I can tell, certified ethnic Hawaiian ancestry, for genealogical purposes. It could be issued to "a person born in Hawaii who was one year old or older and whose birth had not been previously registered in Hawaii. (link.)
Selective reading and comprehension aside, the entire argument still doesn’t make much sense to me. The blogs I’ve read about this seem to think that if you were born in Honolulu, you got a Birth Certificate, whereas everyone else got something called a Certificate of Live Birth. I don’t know if this distinction exists in other states or what other states call their birth certificates, but I most assuredly was born in Honolulu and I have a Certificate of Live Birth, filled out by the hospital I was born in and signed by the doctor who delivered me. Though there is a document that functions as one, I have never heard of nor seen a document with text proclaiming it to be a “Birth Certificate.”
