Then why have eligibility requirements in the constitution? For the record, I don’t think there should be any; if we elect a 9-year-old German kid still living in Dusseldorf then that’s on us. But they are there.
Is there serious discussion about “natural born”? It’s in opposition to “naturalized”.
If you are a citizen, either you were naturalized, or you were born that way- a natural born citizen.
Yes they are there. And who should enforce them? The Supreme Court?
The Supreme Court has repeatedly refused to rule on eligibility requirements for various reasons, most notably that the people challenging eligibility did not have standing.
And this is a huge problem for what reason?
The Constitution only exists so long as the human beings who are citizens of this country agree to act as if it exists. The voters could make decisions that violate the Constitution, the Legislatures could enact laws that violate the Constitution, the courts can make rulings that violate the constitution.
It seems to me that there are enough people in this country who believe in the value of the Constitution that they would vote against a 9 year old German kid, even if he seemed an otherwise excellent candidate.
And if there aren’t enough people in the country to vote against the German kid, and he gets elected, well, that will be the end of the Constitution I guess. The Constitution will only be valid if enough of us agree to act as if it were valid, that’s the only way laws and social contracts and constitutions can actually be enforced.
Every law that was ever found unconstitutional was duly voted in by democratically elected representatives. Since “enough people in the country” voted for those laws (or at least for people who then majority-voted for those laws) should that have been “the end of the Constitution”?
I mean if we vote for the German kid, and the legislature doesn’t rule on the issue, and the Supreme Court doesn’t rule on the issue, and the various state electoral commissions don’t refuse to put him on the ballot, and the electoral college votes for him, and he goes to be inaugurated and is sworn in, and he moves into the white house and no one makes a peep, and he starts signing laws and appointing his cabinet, well, then that’s what’s going to happen.
The fact that it is blatantly unconstitutional won’t matter if everyone agrees to pretend that it isn’t.
In any case, we’re not talking about a 9 year old german kid. We’re talking about over 35 American citizens born overseas, who became American citizens at birth because they had an American parent.
What’s the value of the Supreme Court ruling on this? Either they affirm that such a person is eligible to run for president, which makes sense, and affirms the status quo. Or they rule that such a person is not eligible, which would be nonsensical, and then we have a fuss, and congress has to pass a law defining it, and so on.
In actuality they will never rule that such a person is not a “natural born citizen”. The only possible outcome is for them to rule explicitly that such a person is. And what’s the value of that? To shut people up? It won’t shut up people who believe John McCain is not a natural born citizen, they’ll just believe the Supreme Court decided wrongly.
Fortunately the people who believe that being born outside the United States makes you not natural born are very few, and so we can ignore them. They are free to vote against anyone they feel is ineligible to run and who is unlawfully on the ballot, they can vote against anyone for any reason. We don’t have to listen to them, but we don’t have to power to shut them up.
There is no need for an explicit ruling, because the Status Quo is sensible and comports with a common sense reading of the Constitution. There is no danger that tomorrow the court will rule otherwise. And even if today the court makes an explicit ruling on eligibility that doesn’t protect us against the court changing its mind tomorrow.
Is there some damage associated with an explicit ruling?
Explicit rulings later become precedents, sometimes with unforeseen implications.
If there’s never a ruling, there’s no precedent.
No. But neither is there damage from refusing to rule on technical grounds like standing. It is clear that the court will never rule that a candidate is not eligible, so it’s up to Congress, the state electoral commissions, the parties, and the voters to enforce the provision.
Has the supreme court rules on presidential eligibility questions? I wasn’t aware any had made it that far (but I’ve not done deep research).
I agree it likely isn’t that big of an issue. But you could say this about any part of the constitution. If a majority votes for it and nobody in government objects to it we could institute Catholicism as the state religion of the United States.
But if someone can show they’re being harmed by that then the courts should rule on it and enforce that part of the constitution.
And if someone with questionable eligibility were actually elected, I think you’d be able to find parties able to show harm and thus have standing. And if so, no I don’t think the Supreme Court should just say “well, if nobody else is going to speak up I don’t think we should either.”
It is a key part of things that unconstitutional things can happen without it rendering the constitution null.
At that point it wouldn’t matter as the Supreme Court can’t impeach a President, that is done by Congress. And they don’t need a court ruling, just the votes.
Except this has already happened, and the Supreme Court did nothing. John McCain was born in Panama. The Supreme Court told everyone to fuck off, it was up to us to decide whether to vote for John McCain or not.
Of course, another way of putting this is that the Supreme Court, by refusing to rule that John McCain was not a natural born citizen, effectively ruled that as far as they were concerned he was a natural born citizen. If someone wanted a decision that John McCain wasn’t eligible they’d have to look somewhere else, like congress, or the state electoral commissions, or the voters.
Sure. A constitutional crisis would ensue if the other branches chose to not act. But we’d have an answer.
And things would become a real pain when all lower courts started ruling as illegitimate any law signed by the president (if they’d ruled him ineligible).
In what way is anyone harmed by a President who isn’t technically qualified?
Except possibly the person who lost the election. Even then it’s a tough sell- are you going to sue for damages?
You can’t go to the Supreme Court and say “he cheated!”, even if it’s true. You have to have a better argument.
You’re right. Thinking about it more, I don’t think the standing issue gets easier after election. In fact it probably gets harder once Congress has certified the result.
Although, oddly enough, none of his neighbors could vote him. Puerto Rico isn’t a state and is not represented in the Electoral College.
Yes. The Supremes would almost surely either deny cert in the first place, or decide that the case presented a political question, and punt.
But Congress certainly attempts to do so and it’s given weight, at least in the media and in public discourse. We all heard that McCain, for example, was clearly a natural born citizen because Congress passed a law making people born in the Canal Zone natural born citizens. Same with George Romney and the debate about the hypothetical Kenyan-born Obama being okay if only his mother was 19 instead of 18.
Other constitutional issues aren’t discussed in this manner. When discussing SSM, for example, nobody says that it is certainly not permitted at the federal level because DOMA was passed in 1996. In other constitutional issues, we don’t care what Congress has said because courts define constitutional terms and not legislatures.
Congress certainly attempts to do what? There’s no question Congress can change the rules on under what circumstances someone can be granted citizenship (within the limitations imposed by the 14th Amendment). That’s not Congress attempting to define “natural born citizen”…the laws regarding the Canal Zone weren’t changed to affect who could be President.
But whatever “naturally born citizen” means, pretty much everyone assumes it has something to do with the legal situation regarding a persons birth. So laws passed by Congress affect the application of whatever the definition is, even if they don’t affect the actual definition itself.
If not mistaken there were lawsuits filed challenging President Obama’s election on the basis of citizenship also.
Yes, and they were all dismissed because the plaintiffs lacked standing.
When the Constitution was written, I know categories 1 and 3 existed, but did category 2? If it did not, the first laws establishing it should have addressed the question, and if they did not, well, I got nothin’. I’m surprised, is all, since lawmakers are generally supposed to be familiar with the Constitution.