A Citizen but "Natural Born"? McCain's Eligibility to Be President Disputed by Law Professor.

[jefferson_dem]

July 11, 2008
A Hint of New Life to a McCain Birth Issue
By ADAM LIPTAK

In the most detailed examination yet of Senator John McCain’s eligibility to be president, a law professor at the University of Arizona has concluded that neither Mr. McCain’s birth in 1936 in the Panama Canal Zone nor the fact that his parents were American citizens is enough to satisfy the constitutional requirement that the president must be a “natural-born citizen.”

The analysis, by Prof. Gabriel J. Chin, focused on a 1937 law that has been largely overlooked in the debate over Mr. McCain’s eligibility to be president. The law conferred citizenship on children of American parents born in the Canal Zone after 1904, and it made John McCain a citizen just before his first birthday. But the law came too late, Professor Chin argued, to make Mr. McCain a natural-born citizen.

“It’s preposterous that a technicality like this can make a difference in an advanced democracy,” Professor Chin said. “But this is the constitutional text that we have.”

Several legal experts said that Professor Chin’s analysis was careful and plausible. But they added that nothing was very likely to follow from it.

“No court will get close to it, and everyone else is on board, so there’s a constitutional consensus, the merits of arguments such as this one aside,” said Peter J. Spiro, an authority on the law of citizenship at Temple University.

Mr. McCain has dismissed any suggestion that he does not meet the citizenship test.

In April, the Senate approved a nonbinding resolution declaring that Mr. McCain is eligible to be president. Its sponsors said the nation’s founders would have never intended to deny the presidency to the offspring of military personnel stationed out of the country.

A lawsuit challenging Mr. McCain’s qualifications is pending in the Federal District Court in Concord, N.H.

There are, Professor Chin argued in his analysis, only two ways to become a natural-born citizen. One, specified in the Constitution, is to be born in the United States. The other way is to be covered by a law enacted by Congress at the time of one’s birth.

Professor Chin wrote that simply being born in the Canal Zone did not satisfy the 14th Amendment, which says that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”

<SNIP>

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/11/us/politics/11mccain.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&ref=politics&pagewanted=print&adxnnlx=1215788429-H/BzG/OX7wCpkHniCmQZtw

[scheming daemons]

1. Give it a rest..... we *WANT* McCain to be the GOP nominee

Both McCain and Obama are FULLY eligible to be President.

[jefferson_dem]

2. Hey.

This is a NYT opinion piece. It's not my argument per se. I only offer it here for edification purposes.

I do find it interesting that even as the Repuke foamers question Barack's loyalties, it's McSame who has the more questionable citizenship credentials.

[zbdent]

3. that technicality would allow the GOP to save face and nominate

someone they actually would be able to stand behind, instead of holding their nose and rooting for him just because his POW status allows them to bash Dems in the "liberal media" as "unpatriotic" ...

[Merlot]

4. I don't think this warrants mccain not being the nominee

I'd prefer to see him get the nom and be denied the presidency by simply not being electable.

Although there is a certain delicious irony to mccain being ineligible to become president on a technicality. If this were Obama's issues, the repubs would be all over it .

[Bill McBlueState]

5. like other posters have said,

We really *do* want McCain to be the nominee.

But -- if this becomes a controversy and leads people to consider amending the Constitution to eliminate the "natural-born" requirement, I'm all for that. The fears that motivated the founders to include this are no longer an issue, IMO.

[FSogol]

6. So test tube babies can't become President? n/t

[northzax]

7. how can a 1937 law affect what happened in 1936?

the question is what was the law in 1936?

[L0oniX]

8. Natural Born asscarrot extraordinarie

[slick8790]

9. Is this guy crazy? Or just seeking attention?

A natural born citizen is either anyone born in any united states territory (arguably true of McCain) or anyone with at least one parent holding American citizenship. He'd be a natural born citizen either way, regardless of where he was born, as at least one of his parents was a U.S. citizen.


Sheesh, this guy's a law professor?

[suston96]

10. You are absolutely correct....I know - I fall into that category....

I was born overseas to an American father who immediately registered my birth with the American consul and who added me to his - my father's - American passport - a passport which I still have and which I had to use to prove my citizenship and to get my own American passport.

Recently, a nephew of mine sent me a Cabin Passenger report from the ship we crossed the ocean on, with my name and my mother's name. There, next to my name, it said in big letters: US Citizen. I was nine months old. My mother had to process through Ellis Island but I was handed over to my father because I was a natural born American citizen - a fact which my father never stopped reminding me.

[treestar]

11. So he's saying it made him a citizen before his first birthday, but

he wasn't a citizen the day he was born!

:rofl: This ought to be fun. Useless, though, since McSame is not going to win. But fun.

[suston96]

12. For those who might be interested..........

http://immigration.findlaw.com/immigration/immigration-citizenship-naturalization/immigration-citizenship-naturalization-did-you-know(2).html

Acquiring citizenship at birth from a parent is as natural born as you can get.