Constitutional Law Professor: McCain Not Eligible For Presidency

[babylonsister]

A Hint of New Life to a McCain Birth Issue

By ADAM LIPTAK
Published: July 11, 2008


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.”


A 1936 picture shows the future presidential candidate John McCain in the arms of his grandfather John Sidney McCain in the Canal Zone. His father, John Sidney McCain Jr., is at left.


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.

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/11/us/politics/11mccain.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all&adxnnlx=1215781665-j3/UKg3GWvtv+0gnW4xtKA&oref=slogin

[scheming daemons]

1. As Democrats, we should NOT pursue this.....

....we *WANT* McCain to be our opponent.


He is a fatally flawed candidate. We do NOT want the GOP to have the opportunity to replace him with a better candidate.


We need to let this story die and not pursue it further.

[babylonsister]

2. Allright already, I am not trying to start a movement, only sharing

info.

[skooooo]

4. If they tried to replace him at this point...

...they would definitely lose. You can't just exchange people in mid-season and expect the crowds to go along.

[Benhurst]

6. On the contrary, they might do very well IF they had someone to

run. Most Americans won't tune in until after the conventions, around Labor Day. I really can't think of anyone for them to run who would do much better than McCain though; but then I am prejudiced against most Republicans.

If Obama were forced out of the race for some reason, I think we would still go on to victory. Most people now realize what a mess Bush has made of the country. Hell, not too many years ago we won a senate seat in Missouri with a dead candidate. I think this is going to be one of those years for the Republicans.

[skooooo]

7. I disagree.

Too late, would have to build from the ground up.

Not gonna happen.

Let's agree to disagree?

[Benhurst]

10. Sure.

But I'm curious. Do you really think if Obama were somehow taken out of the race that McCain would win? I think, short of the party going insane and nominating Charles Manson, we'd still win. We have too many well-known players who could step into the position, and I don't think McCain would be helped much at all. McCain has many problems; but Bush is his overriding one, and that holds true no matter who his opponent is.

[skooooo]

11. It's quite possible..

I understand why you think the way you do about this ... logically it kind of makes sense (what you're saying). But the reality is that whenever a party's campaign is totally disrupted in some way, it's very very hard to recover.

[indepat]

21. That McCain is a fatally flawed candidate should be evident to all, but speaking of

fatally flawed, a fatally flawed electorate lurks. :D

[RNdaSilva]

22. "...a fatally flawed electorate lurks."

Therein lies the rub. (No, not a Shakespearean quote)

[liberal N proud]

3. Figures

They have been trying to spread the propaganda that Obama was born in Africa whilst McSame actually was not born in the US.

LOL

[Benhurst]

5. Cheney and Bush were from the same state in 2000, but that was

ignored. Oh, yeah, Cheney made a quick claim that his vacation house in Wyoming was his residence; but he didn't even bother to change his driver's license or move out of his Texas house. Try pulling a stunt like that if you want to get a child into another state's university without paying out of state tuition. Lot's of luck! But, hey, they were only dealing with a Constitutional residency requirement for the president and vice president. Big deal!

The laws apply to some; they don't to others.

And that's the way it is in BushAmerica.

[kay1864]

13. Actually it's not illegal for candidates to be from the same state

It only affects the slate of electors if they are. Neither party wants both candidates in the same state, since they could lose electoral votes.

The Twelfth Amendment provides, among other things, that "Electors shall . . . vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves."

This clearly doesn't prohibit all-Virginia or all-New York tickets; it simply generates a significant disincentive for such tickets inasmuch as the Virginia or New York electors are barred from voting for both of their party's candidates.

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/commentary/20000816_levinson.html

[Benhurst]

16. And if the Constitution had been followed in 2000?

[kay1864]

17. If by that you mean

"had the Court of Appeals ruled in 2000 that Cheney was actually a resident of Texas"...

it appears that the Texas electors could then vote for Bush but not for Cheney.

Which means determination of the VP would have been left up to the Senate. Which in 2000 would have voted in Cheney.

[Benhurst]

18. I think our crooked Supremes would have saved the Senate from having

to take such a vote.

Don't forget if the Supremes hadn't thrown their decision for Bush and there had been a recount, Jeb had already organized the Florida legislature to certify his brother, win or lose. That would have exposed how crooked the process was, and "president" Bush and the Republican party would have suffered a public relations black eye as a consequence. The Supreme Court's decision had more to do with a cover-up than the actual theft itself, which would have taken place no matter what.

[kay1864]

19. True dat

On both your points.

[Renew Deal]

8. I don't think there's much here, BUT....

I'd like to hear what the Supreme Court thinks about it.

[Benhurst]

12. Yeah, the Supreme Court which threw the 2000 election to

Bush.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

You can always count on their impartiality, judgment and integrity.

[Renew Deal]

14. I get your point

But still... The issue of birth on military bases should be taken up.

[baldguy]

9. He was born to American citizens on American territory.

[Spiffarino]

15. Goldwater had this "problem" too

Barry Goldwater was born in Arizona before it became a state. But he was also born of U.S. parents in a territory governed by the U.S.

I believe Professor Chin and others will lose this argument. However, the term "natural-born" is wishy-washy at best because the people who wrote the Constitution couldn't even agree about what it meant. It's meaning is exactly what you think it is...what anybody thinks it is.

My argument would be thus: Why would you deny the Presidency to a person who was born abroad of American parents? What if they were overseas on behalf of the U.S. government? Does Professor Chin think the children of U.S. diplomats, CIA agents, soldiers, sailors and airmen are less than natural-born?

It should be interesting to watch and I think it's an argument worth settling, but I don't think it'll go far. Still, I'm glad you brought it up.

[berni_mccoy]

20. Shhhhhh. Wait Until AFTER the GOP Convention. LOL.