Let’s say that, as he leaves office in 2016, President Obama glibly admits that, yeah, he really was born in Kenya to a Swedish woman, adopted by a white american woman who moved to Hawaii, and the Hawaiian certificate was created shortly thereafter under murky conditions.
What happens?
Objection. Calls for speculation. I move to change venue.
(reported for wrong forum)
I posted a similar question many years go. Unfortunately, it has long since disappeared, but I surprisingly got a lot of good responses.
Basically, the consensus was that the guy would probably serve out his term.
I object to Oak’s objection. No speculation is called for. This is a hypothetical “what if” with stated parameters and an answer that is either true or false.
I think that discussion of legal principles that may apply to whether laws an unqualified president signed while in office were valid, for example, can be a legitimate factual question. But the parameters of the question are in fact extremely broad. Perhaps the OP could clarify the scope of the question.
The OP posits that he has already served out two terms. The question, I think, is how the revelation would affect any acts carried out while in office.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
It’s not going to happen, but I wonder if it means that the bills he signs are automatically invalid?
He’s an American citizen. I didn’t vote for him, and I know he’s entitled to be president. I wish the birthers would all go speculate on the *Mary Celeste *or Stonehenge and go away.
I don’t know if #3 is really a legitemate question–does the Prez have the power to do anything meaningful without a congressional vote? Alternatively it could be the answer if his role is really that of a Suggestor as opposed to a Decidor.
Suppose someone found new evidence that Dwight Eisenhower had been born in Mexico to Mexican parents, and that his supposed American parents brought him up without adopting him. Would the acts of the Eisenhower Administration (including the admission of Ohio, Alaska and Hawaii as states) be therefore invalid?
This whole thread is silly speculation about a silly possibility. It is NOT a general question, because there is no factual answer available. The situation never having happened, the Constitution being silent on the matter, it would be solved politically.
GD time.
The same thing that happened to all those Constitutional amendments that were supposed to be invalid because Ohio wasn’t really a state until 1950.
Or, to be less flip, the same thing that happened to all those porn producers after Traci Lords showed the court a U.S. passport that said she was old enough to do porn, even though she wasn’t. Nothing.
Obama produced the documents necessary to prove he was eligible for the Presidency. The state of Hawaii verfied the documents. Case closed.
Nitpick: it was in 1953 that the paperwork admitting Ohio as a state was completed by President Eisenhower, for the sesquicentenary of its admission in 1803.
Lou Dobbs would finally find an acorn and go away for the winter.
It would mean absolutely nothing.
Although it’s never been explicitly defined by anyone, scholors by in large all agree the term “natural born citizen,” means that you are a citizen of the United States and you were that way from the moment you were born.
In otherwords you are a citizen and you didn’t have to take out any papers or go through any legal process to achieve that citizenship.
It makes no difference where Obama was born because his mother was a citizen. That automatically makes him a US citizen regardless if he was born in Kenya or the South Pole.
There currently is no one that disputes Obama is a citizen. Everyone agrees Mr Obama is a citizen.
He took out no papers to achieve that citizenship, thus he is natural born. It’s logical.
Children born to women who are citizen are automatically citizens of the USA.
Note: this doesn’t apply to children of men. There is somewhat of a double standard that came into play after WWII.
War babies in WWII were given US citizenship automatically if their dads were Americans regardless of their mothers.
However during the Korean War and continuing through Vietnam and to today, a child born to a foreigner and a Male. US soldier (who is a citizen) isn’t automatically a citizen. So there is a bit of a difference.
If Mary is a US Marine and a citizen any child she gives birth to anywhere, regardless of the father IS a US Citizen by birth. They get this through the mother.
If Bob is a US Marine and a citizen and his child is born to Phyllis a foreigner his child is NOT automatically a citizen from birth, and there are steps that Bob would have to take to make this happen.
Thus there is a double standard.
But as for Mr Obama, no problem his mother is an American that made him a US citizen the day he was born regardless of his father or place of birth. The fact he took out no papers to achieve citizenship status affirms from the moment of birth he was a citzen.
So he would be a natural born citizen and to argue otherwise is possible but would fail pretty much in a half a minute.
No – not all children born to US-citizen mothers are US citizens. If Ann Dunham had given birth to Barack Obama outside the US, Barack Obama would not be a US citizen. (Because she was under 19, and married to a non-US-citizen).
I don’t mean to testy here, but the question isn’t whether or not the Birthers are right. It isn’t about how they might or might not be right. It’s about:
What happens if someone is elected to the post of POTUS and served full terms. Then, after the fact, it is determined that a POTUS was constitutionally unqualified for the post.
Barack Obama is the de facto President of the United States and Commander in Chief. Assuming he did this in 2016, it wouldn’t matter- as he has provided proof beyond a reasonable doubt that he is eligible for the office of President, he is eligible for the office of President. QED.
If it turns out the evidence was flawed, well, whoops.
Actually, US law at the time means that Obama wouldn’t have been a US citizen if born overseas, as his mother had not been a US citizen for the required amount of time (21 years?) per current law as it was longer than she had been alive.
If it turns out that Barrack Obama was secretly ineligible to serve as president, nothing would happen. His acts as president would still stand. Everything he signed would still be law. If he was out of office by the time the ineligibility was discovered, then the matter would be closed. If he was still in office, then Congress could impeach him and remove him from office, and Biden would become president. If Congress refused to impeach him, then he would continue to serve as president.
Answered in full by DSYoungEsq in post #9.
All of this would go away if he would just release his long form birth certificate…
(ducks)
Okay, that being said, I don’t see how you could “undo” a presidential administration. Is every budget that he signed no longer valid? Every social security check and medicare claim must be repaid with interest? Every dime of tax collected refunded to the taxpayers and every memory of a vacation at a National Park be laserwiped from memory?