Is McCain REALLY Eligible To Run For President? Is He Truly A "Natural Born Citizen?"
- From: Chuck Wilson <chas_wilson@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 21 Mar 2008 23:53:40 -0700 (PDT)
McCain's Canal Zone Birth Prompts Queries
About Whether That Rules Him Out
By Carl Hulse
WASHINGTON -- The question has nagged at the parents of Americans born
outside the continental United States for generations: Dare their
children aspire to grow up and become president? In the case of
Senator John McCain of Arizona, the issue is becoming more than a
matter of parental daydreaming.
Mr. McCain's likely nomination as the Republican candidate for
president and the happenstance of his birth in the Panama Canal Zone
in 1936 are reviving a musty debate that has surfaced periodically
since the founders first set quill to parchment and declared that only
a "natural-born citizen" can hold the nation's highest office.
Almost since those words were written in 1787 with scant explanation,
their precise meaning has been the stuff of confusion, law school
review articles, whisper campaigns and civics class debates over
whether only those delivered on American soil can be truly natural
born. To date, no American to take the presidential oath has had an
official birthplace outside the 50 states.
"There are powerful arguments that Senator McCain or anyone else in
this position is constitutionally qualified, but there is certainly no
precedent," said Sarah H. Duggin, an associate professor of law at
Catholic University who has studied the issue extensively. "It is not
a slam-dunk situation."
Mr. McCain was born on a military installation in the Canal Zone,
where his mother and father, a Navy officer, were stationed. His
campaign advisers say they are comfortable that Mr. McCain meets the
requirement and note that the question was researched for his first
presidential bid in 1999 and reviewed again this time around.
But given mounting interest, the campaign recently asked Theodore B.
Olson, a former solicitor general now advising Mr. McCain, to prepare
a detailed legal analysis. "I don't have much doubt about it," said
Mr. Olson, who added, though, that he still needed to finish his
research.
Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and one of Mr.
McCain's closest allies, said it would be incomprehensible to him if
the son of a military member born in a military station could not run
for president.
"He was posted there on orders from the United States government," Mr.
Graham said of Mr. McCain's father. "If that becomes a problem, we
need to tell every military family that your kid can't be president if
they take an overseas assignment."
The phrase "natural born" was in early drafts of the Constitution.
Scholars say notes of the Constitutional Convention give away little
of the intent of the framers. Its origin may be traced to a letter
from John Jay to George Washington, with Jay suggesting that to
prevent foreigners from becoming commander in chief, the Constitution
needed to "declare expressly" that only a natural-born citizen could
be president.
Ms. Duggin and others who have explored the arcane subject in depth
say legal argument and basic fairness may indeed be on the side of Mr.
McCain, a longtime member of Congress from Arizona. But multiple
experts and scholarly reviews say the issue has never been
definitively resolved by either Congress or the Supreme Court.
Ms. Duggin favors a constitutional amendment to settle the matter.
Others have called on Congress to guarantee that Americans born
outside the national boundaries can legitimately see themselves as
potential contenders for the Oval Office.
"They ought to have the same rights," said Don Nickles, a former
Republican senator from Oklahoma who in 2004 introduced legislation
that would have established that children born abroad to American
citizens could harbor presidential ambitions without a legal cloud
over their hopes. "There is some ambiguity because there has never
been a court case on what 'natural-born citizen' means."
Mr. McCain's situation is different from those of the current
governors of California and Michigan, Arnold Schwarzenegger and
Jennifer M. Granholm, who were born in other countries and were first
citizens of those nations, rendering them naturalized Americans
ineligible under current interpretations. The conflict that could
conceivably ensnare Mr. McCain goes more to the interpretation of
"natural born" when weighed against intent and decades of immigration
law.
Mr. McCain is not the first person to find himself in these
circumstances. The last Arizona Republican to be a presidential
nominee, Barry Goldwater, faced the issue. He was born in the Arizona
territory in 1909, three years before it became a state. But Goldwater
did not win, and the view at the time was that since he was born in a
continental territory that later became a state, he probably met the
standard.
It also surfaced in the 1968 candidacy of George Romney, who was born
in Mexico, but again was not tested. The former Connecticut politician
Lowell P. Weicker Jr., born in Paris, sought a legal analysis when
considering the presidency, an aide said, and was assured he was
eligible. Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr. was once viewed as a potential
successor to his father, but was seen by some as ineligible since he
had been born on Campobello Island in Canada. The 21st president,
Chester A. Arthur, whose birthplace is Vermont, was rumored to have
actually been born in Canada, prompting some to question his
eligibility.
Quickly recognizing confusion over the evolving nature of citizenship,
the First Congress in 1790 passed a measure that did define children
of citizens "born beyond the sea, or out of the limits of the United
States to be natural born." But that law is still seen as potentially
unconstitutional and was overtaken by subsequent legislation that
omitted the "natural-born" phrase.
Mr. McCain's citizenship was established by statutes covering the
offspring of Americans abroad and laws specific to the Canal Zone as
Congress realized that Americans would be living and working in the
area for extended periods. But whether he qualifies as natural-born
has been a topic of Internet buzz for months, with some declaring him
ineligible while others assert that he meets all the basic
constitutional qualifications -- a natural-born citizen at least 35
years of age with 14 years of residence.
"I don't think he has any problem whatsoever," said Mr. Nickles, a
McCain supporter. "But I wouldn't be a bit surprised if somebody is
going to try to make an issue out of it. If it goes to court, I think
he will win."
Lawyers who have examined the topic say there is not just confusion
about the provision itself, but uncertainty about who would have the
legal standing to challenge a candidate on such grounds, what form a
challenge could take and whether it would have to wait until after the
election or could be made at any time.
In a paper written 20 years ago for the Yale Law Journal on the
natural-born enigma, Jill Pryor, now a lawyer in Atlanta, said that
any legal challenge to a presidential candidate born outside national
boundaries would be "unpredictable and unsatisfactory."
"If I were on the Supreme Court, I would decide for John McCain," Ms.
Pryor said in a recent interview. "But it is certainly not a frivolous
issue."
.
- Prev by Date: Re: OT Politics - was Lon's "Friends"
- Next by Date: Re: Bait & Switch by Richardson's RV
- Previous by thread: Cherokee, N C
- Next by thread: Diesel fuel additives???
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
