Eligibility under the Natural Born Citizen Clause is NOT a Legal Question, it is POLITICAL!

[MohRokTah]

In every case brought before the federal courts questioning the eligibility of Barack Obama to serve as president under the Natural Born Citizen clause, every last case was dismissed due to a lack of standing.

Every last case was brought before the SCOTUS and in every case, the SCOTUS refused to grant certiorari, allowing the lower court rulings dismissing on a lack of standing to stand.

This means, the court will not hear such arguments as a matter of law.

The initial determination as to whether a candidate is a natural born citizen is therefore left to the voters.

The Congress in the Committee of the Whole serves as a check against the voters as the eligibility of any candidate may be questioned by a written submission by at least one member of each House. IF these requirements are met, the House and Senate adjourn to their respective bodies to debate and vote. A majority vote in each body in favor of determining the candidate ineligible due to the Natural Born Citizen clause means the candidate is ineligible and cannot become president. If that candidate had 270 electoral votes, then the House determines who is president through a vote where each state delegation gets a single vote and 26 votes elects the president. The Senate determines the Veep through a majority vote should the electoral votes for Veep have been invalidated due to the ineligibility of the presidential candidate, otherwise whomsoever received 270 or more electoral votes for Veep would be Veep.

This is not a legal question. It is a political question.

[Yupster]

1. I think there should be some orderly way to certify a candidate

eligible to run for president.

Right now a 16 year old can be elected president.

The Constitution says you have to be 35 but there's no way of checking or certifying or anything. If a 16 year old says I'm 35 and his birth certificate says he's obviously 16, he could still run and be elected. There just isn't any system of checking.

I propose some government organization to certify that each candidate is 35 and a natural born citizen. Then at the convention some officious person would come out on stage and say that candidate Clinton has submitted her documents to the commission and they hereby certify her eligible to run for the office of president of the United States and then everyone would cheer and balloons would drop.

I proposed the same thing when Trump was going after Obama and was called a birther. It's not about Obama or Cruz. If there are hurdles a candidate has to jump over to run for president there needs to be some way of saying the person has crossed those hurdles.

[MohRokTah]

2. The constitution is pretty clear on what body may determine eligibility.

The Congress is the branch of government with the final say on eligibility.

The voters have first say.

The courts do not get involved. There have been cases of candidate who were not even citizens running and the courts will still not remove their names from the ballots.

[Yupster]

5. Where do you see in the Constitution that the congress

has final say over whether a person is eligible to run for president or not?

I don't see congress as having any role at all unless no one has a majority of electoral votes.

[jberryhill]

3. Ummmmmm.... No

A government office which decides who may or may not run for office?

No thanks.

[Warpy]

4. A 16 year old might run but he can't serve in office for another 19 years.

Birth records actually do provide a way of checking. What else do you propose, counting the rings around his trunk? Looking at how worn his teeth are?

For me, the problem is "natural born citizen." The founding fathers didn't foresee military bases and embassies around the globe. They also didn't foresee anyone living abroad for a long enough time to marry and produce offspring, and whether foreign born offspring of one American parent would be considered to be natural born in this country. Also, they failed to see unnaturally born, everything from c-sections to invitro conceptions. Life was a hell of a lot simpler then, and a citizen was anybody who was born in the most common way here on US soil. Eventually all this stuff might face legal challenges by one sore loser or another.

However, we're not Dan'l Boone, living on the frontier and with no paperwork to show when we hit the air. We do have paper trails and that is still considered sufficient proof of our date of entry into this world.

[Yupster]

6. Why do you say he couldn't serve?

Who would stop him?

He gets elected. He shows up and takes office on inauguration day.

What or who would stop him?

There's a birth certificate saying he's 16? So he says he's 36. He gets elected. What next?

[Warpy]

7. He would be impeached and removed.

It would be extremely far fetched to say he'd even be sworn in.

The FEC, after all, checks that paper trail. No paper trail, he's SOL.

[Yupster]

8. Maybe he'd be impeached

Maybe his party controls the House and he isn't impeached. He'd have to be pretty popular to be elected in the first place.

The FEC has no authority to tell someone he can't run for President.

Obviously my example is an extreme one, but don't you see my point is that there needs to be some mechanism where a person is ruled Constitutionally eligible to run for president?

[anigbrowl]

9. The Secretary of State in each state certifies eligibility of candidates.

Look at the candidacy requirements on the various SoS' websites - requirements vary by state but you have to supply a bunch of basic information about yourself, have some ID, proof of residence etc., and pay a fee. The SoS in each state certifies the results of all state and federal elections. That's why you should pay attention to who's running for that office, it's a very powerful position that typically does not get a lot of news coverage.