It doesn't appear to be such an open issue to the United States Senate (which, according to the GPO, is the government reference point for the current meaning of the Constitution). (My emphasis added)
Here's what they have to say about it:
Clause 5. No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been Fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
QUALIFICATIONS
All Presidents since and including Martin Van Buren were born in the United States subsequent to the Declaration of Independence. The principal issue with regard to the qualifications set out in this clause is whether a child born abroad of American parents is ‘‘a natural born citizen’’ in the sense of the clause. Such a child is a citizen as a consequence of statute.
100 Whatever the term ‘‘natural born’’ means, it no doubt does not include a person who is ‘‘naturalized.’’ Thus, the answer to the question might be seen to turn on the interpretation of the first sentence of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment, providing that ‘‘[a]ll persons born or naturalized in the United States’’ are citizens. 101 Significantly, however, Congress, in which a number of Framers sat, provided in the Naturalization act of 1790 that ‘‘the children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond the sea, . . . shall be considered as natural born citizens . . . .’’
102 This phrasing followed the literal terms of British statutes, beginning in 1350, under which persons born abroad, whose parents were both British subjects, would enjoy the same rights of inheritance as those born in England; beginning with laws in 1709 and 1731, these statutes expressly provided that such persons were natural-born subjects of the crown.
103 There is reason to believe, therefore, that the phrase includes persons who become citizens at birth by statute because of their status in being born abroad of American citizens.
104 Whether the Supreme Court would decide the issue should it ever arise in a ‘‘case or controversy’’—as well as how it might decide it—can only be speculated about.
I have left out all the legal cases they cite. You can find them at the entry (starting on page 27) at the link: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/constitution/pdf2002/012.pdf
(You’ll note that there can be no dispute about what the original framers of the Constitution intended. Quite a number of them were still alive and in Congress when they wrote the 1790 statute, some three years after adoption of the Constitution. So how the Supreme Court would decide the case seems heavily canted to one side.)
Um, no. IF your parents are married, AND one of them is a foreign national, AND you are born in that foreign national's country, you are a citizen of that country, not an American by birth.
Not quite. The correct formulation is IF you are born outside the United States AND one of your parents is a United States citizen AND your parents are married AND your United States citizen parent meets the physical presence and residence requirements, you are a citizen of the United States by statute.
Here’s the link: http://travel.state.gov/passport/get/first/first_828.html
But that is the November 14, 1986 version of the rules. Wikipedia notes that different rules apply for persons born abroad to one U.S. citizen before that date. It goes on to note United States law on this subject changed multiple times throughout the twentieth century, and the law as it existed at the time of the individual's birth controls.
Link: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_nationality_law#Through_birth_abroad_to_one_United_States_citizen)
So, do you have links to the specific law in effect when Senator Obama was born?
(Not that it is any more than academic exercise since another poster to this thread has supplied a link to the Obama birth notice in the local Hawaiian newspaper, thereby giving further weight to the claim he was born in Hawaii.)
I don't have one handy. David does.
(Not that it is any more than academic exercise since another poster to this thread has supplied a link to the Obama birth notice in the local Hawaiian newspaper, thereby giving further weight to the claim he was born in Hawaii.)
Yeah, no one who'd commit a felony by forging a birth certificate would have the motivation, or the access to a print shop to fake a piece of newsprint.
It's not like anything important, such as staying out of prison, or control of the world's richest country or being the commander-in-chief of the most powerful military in history or anything important like that hangs in the balance...
Mr & Mrs. Barack Obama? NOT! If they lied about their marital status, can they be trusted to tell the truth about their son born out-of-wedlock?
Speaking of which, there are separate, more stringent rules about children born out-of-wedlock. This following is not a quote from statute, but from FindLaw.Com: For children born abroad since 14 November 1986 to a married couple consisting of one US citizen and one non-citizen, the American parent must have been "physically present" in the US for a total of at least five years prior to the birth of the child. Further, at least two years out of this five-year period must have been after the parent reached age 14 (e.g., no good if you lived in the US from birth till age five, then left the country never to return).
From 24 December 1952 to 14 November 1986, the minimum requirement was ten years (five years of which had to have been after the parent's 14th birthday).
If Baby Barack was indeed a bastard, then his mother is disqualified as an American citizen.
Source here
That a Hildabeast operative found the newspaper birth announcement paradoxically adds more credence in my mind.
But that is the November 14, 1986 version of the rules. Wikipedia notes that different rules apply for persons born abroad to one U.S. citizen before that date. It goes on to note United States law on this subject changed multiple times throughout the twentieth century, and the law as it existed at the time of the individual's birth controls.
So, do you have links to the specific law in effect when Senator Obama was born?
(Not that it is any more than academic exercise since another poster to this thread has supplied a link to the Obama birth notice in the local Hawaiian newspaper, thereby giving further weight to the claim he was born in Hawaii.)
Here is a link to a legal opinion which sets forth the nuances of the law and the effective dates of the relevant modifications: "Obama and McCain: Citizenship And Eligibility--Legal Issues Vanity | July 4, 2008 | David"; http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2040753/posts
There are two holes in the opinion as set forth. The legal research engine I had when I wrote it does not reach the effective date of the modification that took the "after age" cut off from 16 to 14--since Stanley Ann missed, even if the age was 14, I have not viewed it as a relevant question.
The significant change took the period from 5 years to 2 years--as set out in the opinion, that change covered persons born after November, 1986 and thus does not affect Obama.
The other hole is 8 USCA Sec. 1409(c) which governs persons born out of wedlock which I now believe is irrelevant to Obama's situation.
I don't view the newspaper clipping as dispositive in any way. In fact, I have forecast that we would find evidence of a filing around August 8, 1961. The issue is what the underlying facts are.
Someone on the mother's side, either Stanley Ann or one of her parents, was concerned about the citizenship issue and took steps to address it.
It would be helpful if someone would look at the other Hawaii newspapers for the period of the first two weeks of August 1991 and determine if the announcement is anywhere else, perhaps with additional information.
The local title company could look at the address given in the note and determine who was in title on that date--maybe find a lease.
An increasingly important question for the Hawaii authorities is the data underlying the August 8, 1961 filing--at what hospital was he born? Who delivered him and how? I continue to believe that is the reason the campaign is concealing the birth records and obstructing access to Mrs. Dunham Sr. and to Sarah in Kenya.
Horse droppings.
It is such an unresolved issue that in the last election cycle McCaskill submitted a bill to establish the eligibility to hold the office of the president to anyone born to a U.S. citizen who is serving overseas as an active or reserve member of the U.S. armed forces.
Why? Because senator McCain's father was a Navy officer serving in the Canal Zone when McCain was born in Panama (NOT IN THE CANAL ZONE). That makes him technically ineligible in many minds.
The laws was never passed. Whether McCain is eligible is still an open question.
If it is not such an issue McCaskill wouldn't have gone through the unsuccessful effort to try to clarify the non-issue.
It was an issue then. It is an issue now. Should McCain be elected the "progressives" will insure it remains an on-going issue. It will be their "modern" version of "selected, not elected", and "He's not MY president!"
McCaskill wasn't able to get her bill passed. The most McCain has saying that congress recognizes his eligibility is a "sense of the senate".
As if the senate had a lick of sense...