related to this thread-what, if anything, does the constitution say about a citizen? Especially besides (that is prior to) the 14th amendment. Is it defined or even used anywhere else except as a qualification for office?
The phrase “natural” born citizen sounds strange to me. “natural” differs from what? An artificial born citizen? Obviously a naturalized citizen is well defined now but not, I believe, at the time of writing of the constitution.
I recently attended a historical lecture given by our Clerk of Court here in Louisiana. She mentioned that back in the day, prior to the civil war, citizens were defined by living here. A person would just arrive, settle down and be a resident. When he (women and children apparently didn’t have to worry about such things) needed to be recognized as a citizen, he would approach a local judge who would decide, based on what he knew about the man, whether he had lived here long enough to be a citizen. Apparently there was no set amount of time required. It was up to the judge. At least around here and back then. The clerk had letters submitted by individuals attesting to their length of residence, but the Clerk said such things were not required. If the Judge had seen you around town long enough, that was sufficient.
missed edit window.
Note this has nothing to do with what a “natural born citizen” is. This process as described above defines what a citizen is-I believe what we would now call naturalized citizen. In fact, there are very interesting historical records filed in the years after the civil war where everyone desiring to regain their citizenship had to file a description of where they were from and where their parents were from. Apparently one of the few such records recorded at the time. It was only required of people who had been part of the confederacy. And of course this didn’t apply prior to the civil war which is the time period I refer to above.
Could congress pass a law defining exactly what a “natural born citizen” is, would it take a constitutional amendment to define that clearly? Cause I’m thinking you guys really need to get that shit sorted out. Its come up in the last three election cycles.
In most states the electors are required by law to vote for whoever won the popular vote. So if Mr. NotQuiteANaturalBornCitizen wins the popular vote but is found out to actually be a Canadian or other heinous furrin’ type before the EC votes for keeps, there is no legal mechanism by which many electors can vote for anyone else.
Some states have more complex or nuanced rules. But not many.
True. It took all the way until the Naturalization Act of 1790 to make any sense of it. Note that it also set rules about residency. As did the Naturalization Acts of 1795 and 1798. And the Naturalization Law of 1802 “directed the clerk of the court to record the entry of all aliens into the United States. The clerk collected information including the applicant’s name, birthplace, age, nation of allegiance, country of emigration, and place of intended settlement, and granted each applicant a certificate that could be exhibited to the court as evidence of time of arrival in the United States.”
If you can recall an incompetent Clerk of Court, start the process now.
The problem with a Constitutional Amendment is that it would have into account about three million different situations. Really, that’s what case law is for.
No more than they can say that “religion” as used in the First Amendment means “acceptance of Flying Spaghetti Monster as your lord and savior.” Congress can’t modify the Constitution via legislation.
What complicates the issue is there have been candidates that acknowledge they are not NBC and that if elected will allow the vice-president elect to become President. Since the Secretaries of State allow that, it seems there are no in-state ways to keep Ted Cruz off the ballot. Since the presidential elections are state by state, could the Federal government by statute require all candidate to be a NBC to be on the state ballot via the Supremacy Clause?
If the state authority in charge of printing the ballots (Secretary of State?) refused to put Ted Cruz’s name on theirs, citing their belief that he was not a natural born citizen, I imagine that he would have standing to sue, and then a ruling could be made?
Doesn’t seem so complicated to me. It would just clarify “a natural born citizen is any US citizen who was eligible for citizenship at time of birth. The requirements for citizenship at time of birth are to be decided by statutory law set by congress.” Done.
Not quite done, I think. Your first sentence refers to someone who is “eligible for citizenship at the time of birth”. Being eligible for citizenship is not the same as being a citizen (in the same way that being eligible for the presidency is not the same as being the President). But your second sentence allows Congress to determine the requirements for citizenship. Do you mean the requirements for eligibility for citizenship?
In other words, I think your language doesn’t answer a key question. Is the presidency confine to people who are citizens from birth? Or is it open to people who, on account of the circumstances of their birth, are entitled to become citizens but who don’t actually become citizens until some later point?
Secondly, your language doesn’t adress this situation; at the time of birth, someone is not a citizen or entitled to become a citizen. But subsequently Congress amends the law to provide that all people born in particular circumstances are US citizens, and are deemed to have been so since birth. (If I’m not mistaken, John Cain may have been in such a group.) Where do they stand?
There is a much simpler constitutional amendment which would provide much greater clarity, which is simply to drop the “natural born” language and allow any citizen to offer himself or herself for election. Why the discrimination against naturalized citizens? Other countries manage just fine with equal citizenship for all. Does the US really need to have a constitutionally-enshrined form of second-class citizenship?
It seems to me that Cruz is legally qualified–but I’m one of those loose-thinking liberals. Perhaps a potential opponent with lots of money will lawyer up?
Granted the phrase is not defined, but the general understanding has always been that “natural born citizen” is synonymous with “citizen by birth”, as opposed to gaining citizenship by immigration. The onus would be on Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton or whoever to prove that it really means something else.
BTW, there really is a Wiki page for everything, including this exact subject. There have been at least 11 presidential candidates whose eligibility was questioned, and it seems that generally courts don’t interfere, treating this as a political question. As such, I’d expect that Congress could probably pass a law stating exactly what consitutes a “natural born citizen” and it would be upheld by the Supreme Court as long as Congress’ interpretation wasn’t something wildly stupid.
Incidentally, the original “Birthers” were opponents of Chester Arthur. His parents were Canadian citizens and he was born in northern Vermont, but there were rumors that he was really born on the other side of the border in Quebec. If tue, that meant he wasn’t a citizen, much less a natural-born one.
If we’re really concerned about divided loyalties, it seems more important to me that the President not be a dual citizen than that he/she be natural born.
e.g. Imagine somebody who was born in the US to US citizens and was therefore unequivocally a US citizen at birth. For whatever reason, this person was raised in Canada and as a teen obtained Canadian citizenship. And has ever since swapped back and forth living on one side or the other as jobs, spouses, etc., dictate.
Finally this person decides to run for President, still retaining their Canadian citizenship. AFAIK under current law and Constitution that would be OK. Passing political muster is the only obstacle. That seems … haphazard to me. The Eeevil *Saskatoonian Candidate *loophole must be closed!
No. But Congress can fill in the gaps. This is a gap. The Constitution doesn’t define what an army or post office is either, and leaves it up to Congress to do so.
Yes, I agree that dual citizenship is a huge fly in the ointment here. I wonder if it even occurred to the founding fathers to discuss this possibility.
Let’s imagine a person who is eligible for US citizenship at birth, and actually ends up being a US citizen, and renounces any other citizenships. This leaves an unanswered question about the 14 year residency requirement. Does time spent living in the US before you accepted US citizenship count? Does the clock start running when you become a citizen, or only after you renounce your other citizenships? By that last interpretation, Ted Cruz is not eligible because he renounced his Canadian citizenship less than 14 years ago.
As for the question of who has standing to sue Ted Cruz… it seems likely that a court would throw out a lawsuit that didn’t come from another candidate, or at the very least an election official of some sort. Opening it up to just any voter could allow the courts to be swamped with baseless lawsuits every election cycle. But what if a registered voter in, say, Texas, decided to sue their electoral college representatives for allegedly voting for an ineligible candidate? Could the voter have standing in that situation?
ARE there people who are eligible for citizenship by birth but not actually citizens?
Obtaining a certificate of citizenship or consular report of birth abroad or U.S. passport, etc., is documentation of citizenship, but doesn’t actually confer citizenship. (That is, they recognize and formalize an already-existing situation.) If you are eligible for citizenship by birth, doesn’t that mean you obtained that citizenship at the moment of birth, regardless of when you are formally registered as possessing that citizenship?
Isn’t there some legal principle that you have to have a more specific interest to have standing? You can’t just be one of several million people for example, who are affected by the outcome. It has to impact you more specifically than “the general public”.
IIRC, in some situations, the exact process of birth does determine eligibility for leadership:
The Founding Fathers I think would not have given much serious thought to the possibility, simply because dual citizenship depended too much on other countries’ laws. For example, at the time it was not even possible to renounce British citizenship under British law (that didn’t happen until 1870), so men born in Britain and their sons born in the United States were saddled with an unwanted nationality that they could not get rid of (this was one of the causes of the War of 1812–the British impressed American sailors who by British law were subjects of the British Crown).
The United States had no right or business telling Britain who was British, any more than the Americans wanted Britain telling them who must be considered American, but if dual citizenship was a bar to the presidency, then essentially Britain (or France or Hesse or Prussia or wherever) could control who was eligible to be the American president.
Every state has its own laws regarding ballot eligibility. Certainly several dozen states saw legal or administrative attacks on Obama’s eligibility in 2012. In some states (such as my own, Kansas), yes, anyone at all may file a challenge to a candidate’s eligibility, and the State Objections Board will consider whatever evidence or argument is advanced before deciding whether or not to include a given candidate on the ballot.
Texas does not bind their electors to vote for the person who actually won the popular vote there. There’s nothing in Texas law that prohibits the elector from casting a vote for Mickey Mouse, or for that matter Vladimir Putin.
