U.S. Senate Expresses Itself on Who is Eligible to be President
May 1st, 2008On April 30, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed a resolution, expressing its opinion that John McCain is eligible to be president. The resolution deals with people born outside the United States whose parents (or one of them) is serving in the military. See this article. Thanks to Ed Still for the link.
May 1st, 2008 at 10:22 am
Until the 17th amendment is repealed, opinions of the US Senate should all be regarded as irrelevant. The foxes are in charge of the hen house.
May 1st, 2008 at 11:10 am
Before the 17th amendment was passed, there were numerous instances in which wealthy individuals bribed state legislators to get appointed to the US Senate. Also some states had deadlock in their state legislatures over who should be in the Senate, sometimes leaving a seat empty for a year.
May 1st, 2008 at 11:59 am
I wish they would have said he wasn’t eligible, so that Ron Paul would be the GOP nominee. However, they should really pass a law that defines “natural born citizen”. I always assumed it meant that 1) your parents were citizens when you were born, or 2) you were born in the USA.
May 1st, 2008 at 12:26 pm
More assumption of judicial powers by the ANTI-Democracy gerrymander U.S.A. Senate ???
A blatant attempt to subvert the Constitution ??? Duh.
See the ROT end of the Roman Republic in 120 B.C to 27 B.C.
Attention any constitutional law MORONS — the Congress can NOT define the meaning of any words in the Constitution — that is the whole purpose of having a written Constitution — to limit legislative bodies.
See Blackstone’s Commentaries (1760s) about *natural born*.
May 1st, 2008 at 1:12 pm
It’s a non-binding resolution. Armchair Constitutional scholars of the world, relax.
May 1st, 2008 at 2:57 pm
“sometimes leaving a seat empty for a year.”
Richard–so there is a positive?
May 1st, 2008 at 5:59 pm
It was nonbinding, but probably an attempt to influence any possible future court decision.
May 2nd, 2008 at 9:51 am
citizen1,
There would likely be no court decision because each house is the judge of their own members’ qualifications. I don’t see how anyone would have standing to sue over this.
May 2nd, 2008 at 9:56 am
For what it’s worth, here is the text of the resolution:
Whereas the Constitution of the United States requires that, to be eligible for the Office of the President, a person must be a `natural born Citizen’ of the United States;
Whereas the term `natural born Citizen’, as that term appears in Article II, Section 1, is not defined in the Constitution of the United States;
Whereas there is no evidence of the intention of the Framers or any Congress to limit the constitutional rights of children born to Americans serving in the military nor to prevent those children from serving as their country’s President;
Whereas such limitations would be inconsistent with the purpose and intent of the `natural born Citizen’ clause of the Constitution of the United States, as evidenced by the First Congress’s own statute defining the term `natural born Citizen’;
Whereas the well-being of all citizens of the United States is preserved and enhanced by the men and women who are assigned to serve our country outside of our national borders;
Whereas previous presidential candidates were born outside of the United States of America and were understood to be eligible to be President; and
Whereas John Sidney McCain, III, was born to American citizens on an American military base in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That John Sidney McCain, III, is a `natural born Citizen’ under Article II, Section 1, of the Constitution of the United States.
May 2nd, 2008 at 10:22 am
The resolution is worth ZERO.
Judicial power is in the Art. III Courts regarding *natural born* — in Art. II, Sec. 1, para. 5.
The Senators who voted for the resolution are ALL constitutional law New Age MORONS — apparently trying to subvert the Constitution — and influence the party hack Supremes.
May 2nd, 2008 at 11:34 am
Stine,
This has nothing to do with either house. The House and the Senate have different requirements than the president.
The fact is that the INA of 1952 stated that any one born in the Canal Zone to American parents was a citizen. The question is whether the status of natural born citizen can be granted retroactively.
May 3rd, 2008 at 8:26 am
Isn’t the real question whether or not a person who is a US Citizen from birth under the law as it existed in 1934, can be stripped by law of that citizenship by a law that was passed in 1952 that purports to extend citizenship to additional persons, because the 1934-citizen happens to also be a member of the set of individuals covered by the 1952 law?
McCain was a citizen from the moment of his birth, since he had two US Citizen parents, both of whom had resided within the United States for a sufficient period of time (according to the 1934 law).
If the 1952 law did strip him of his citizenship, only to grant him retro-active citizenship an instant later, the 1952 law would be unconstitutional and therefore void as far as McCain is concerned. Therefore, the 1952 law only applied to other persons who were not citizens in 1952.
May 3rd, 2008 at 9:28 am
Timm,
That was a slight oversight by my part, but Congress does decide whether or not to count the electoral votes by any state.
May 3rd, 2008 at 10:07 am
Blackstone’s Commentaries
Book I, Chapter 10
Look for *natural born* and allegiance.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural-born_citizen
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegiance
This AIN’T atomic physics again and again.