What would happen if the birthers turned out to be right about Obama?

Great Debates
1

Before I go into this, let’s make one thing clear: Obama is a natural-born citizen, he was born in Hawaii, he is perfectly eligible to be POTUS and anyone who says otherwise, well, some things go without saying. What I’m about to post is purely hypothetical and is more alternate history than anything.

Let’s say by some chance, it turns out the birthers end up being proven right and that Obama really isn’t eligible to be President. How they proved it doesn’t matter. The fact is that they proved it, except for one problem.

They proved it on, let’s pull a date out my ass, October 5, 2011.

Obviously, this is well into Obama’s first term in office. He’s now the President, and it turns out he’s ineligible. My question is, what happens next? Would Congress see the proof and tell the birthers “He’s president. He was sworn in nearly two years ago. You should have proven this before he got elected but you were way too late, so you’re stuck with Obama. Tough shit.”

Or if Congress did decide to go after Obama for it, what then? Impeachment? Declare the election illegitimate? If so, who succeeds him? (Presumably Joe Biden, but there’s a lot of ways this could go, all of them increasingly bizarre.) And is there any chance an impeachment hearing would get off the ground?

I have other ideas about what could happen, all of which would cause a pretty big clusterfuck for damn near everyone in Washington. I figured I’d let you all speculate on how this scenario would go.

I’m sure there’s probably a perfectly simple solution to this puppy except 1)I don’t know what it would be and 2)Simple solutions are no fun.

2

He’d be removed from office, and we’d have President Biden.

3

Are you sure there isn’t a simple factual answer for this as established by law?

4

I’m sure there isn’t. The situation has never really presented before, not even in bullshit-form.

5

I figured there wasn’t. I don’t know how it would all go down, but no matter what it would probably make the birthers in this scenario wish they’d just tossed whatever their proof was down the memory hole.

6

Someone would sue and it would make its way through the courts until the SCOTUS decided. I can’t fathom what they would do. It would be an interesting moot court.

7

<Joey Tribbiani> Don’t you mean moo court? Like a court for cows? <Joey Tribbiani>

8

Obama’s mother was still an American citizen.

9

Every 2 minutes a jet airliner would crash from pigs being sucked into its engines.

10

Qin, the scenario is that Mr. Obama is NOT an natural-born American citizen.
We all know (well, we all SHOULD know) that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii and is a natural-born citizen.

Given the scenario, what other legitimate outcome could there be except the promotion of Mr. Biden to the office of POTUS?

11

Well, I have no legal basis for this opinion, but they (the SC) could decide that not being a NBC only disqualifies someone to run for election, or to be put on the ballot, but Obama could still finish his term and then be unable to be reelected.

To me, that solution would strike the proper balance because qualified to run or not, the people elected him. Just because he was erroneously allowed on the ballot, shouldn’t mean that the will of the electorate is ignored.

12

Following the hypothetical, I don’t think the will of the voters would, or should, matter. If someone is not allowed to hold the office then it is immaterial if he is wanted. Look back to when Arnold S. was super popular early in his Governership. 90% of the people could have wanted him—hell they could have all written his name down—but it still wouldn’t matter.

My guess is that every bill he signed into law would be undone. And THAT could cause a nightmare. But I don’t see any way around it really.

13

I thought about that, and while it would be a weird scenario (certainly one we haven’t seen before), it makes me wonder how far it would go.

Would Obamacare get the ax? If so, how would the states that have started implementing portions of it deal with it?

If every law Obama signed was illegitimate, would all his Cabinet appointments be as well? I doubt that would happen, but if it did, that would be a real mess, especially when they have to figure out who they’re going to make the new POTUS.

I don’t know if any of that is possible, but if it was, hoo boy.

14

I’d normally say that Congress would probably decide it would be less disruptive to just amend the constitution to legitimize everything he’s done in office and let him at least serve out his term, but I’m not so sure about the current Congress.

15

Everyone so far seems to assume Obama would have to be removed from office. I would hope that, in order to avoid a constitutional crisis, Obama would step down and Biden would become president. It would be very strange for Obama to fight it, if it were really, 100% certain. He could avoid the whole mess by just stepping down. Easy peasy.

16

I disagree. Your Arnold example is hardly apt because, barring an amendment, he would never have been allowed to be elected and sworn in. Obama was elected and he was sworn in, and that makes a huge difference.

The time for anyone to challenge Obama’s eligibility was before he was elected, and certainly before he was sworn in. After that, done deal. Once the will of the electorate is ratified, “possession” (yeah, scary quotes) of the office is 9/10th’s of the law.

On a practical level, to do as you suggest would just be insanity. It would be like cutting off your face to spite your nose. I’d like to think that the SC would be more pragmatic than that.

17

But even if that happened, it would only be the ones sent to him by Congress within 10 days of an adjournment. Any other time, the president’s failure to act on a bill means that it becomes law. It would also mean that bills he vetoed outside of those 10 day windows would suddenly become law.

18

If he’s found to have deliberately concealed his ineligibility, remove him on that basis, i.e. fraud. If not (i.e. as far as he knew, he was a born U.S. citizen but evidence came forth that he was actually born outside the U.S.), let him serve out his term though he would obviously not be eligible to run for another.

In any case, do not try to retroactively invalidate legislation he signed, or validate legislation he vetoed. That way lies madness and stupidity.

19

As an incidental note, I’m curious if the presidential election of 2060 will also invoke debates on what “natural born” means, if it is revealed that a candidate was conceived through IVF or other fertility treatments. If future America is as blindly partisan as current America, it won’t shock me.

20

If Obama isn’t willing to resign, then he should be impeached. It doesn’t make sense to force the people to tolerate a president who quite literally doesn’t belong in office. He has to go, voluntarily or not. This is why we have a vice president, even if the exact situation isn’t what the Founding Fathers were imagining.