To: jamese777
jamese777 said:
Ankeny et. al. v The Governor of Indiana. Mitch Daniels http://caselaw.findlaw.com/in-court-of-appeals/1501011.html (Scroll to Section B of the Courts opinion: Natural Born Citizen
Thank you for the citation. Unfortunately we will never know what the Supreme Court would have said as the plaintiffs never appealed it to the Supreme Court. One would think all citizens would like to hear what the Supreme Court has to say on this matter with regards to presidential requirements.
Nevertheless we know where the courts stand with regards to this issue. The final battleground will be between one or more states and the federal government. Will we ever get a definitive decision on this, one that isn't based on the faulty premise of the 14th Amendment rewriting Article II definitions?
To: devattel
james cites the Ankeny decision, which is full of contradictions. On one hand they mischaracterize the plaintiff's case about the relevance of where Obama was or wasn't born. In the introduction, the court says, "Specifically, Plaintiffs appear to argue that the Governor did not comply with this duty because:" ... "(b)neither President Barack Obama nor Senator John McCain were eligible to hold the office of President because neither were born naturally within any Article IV State of the 50 United States of America․' In Part B, they say, "the most common argument has been waged by members of the so-called birther movement who suggest that the President was not born in the United States;" ..."The Plaintiffs in the instant case make a different legal argument based strictly on constitutional interpretation."
Then the court says: "Based upon the language of Article II, Section 1, Clause 4 and the guidance provided by Wong Kim Ark, we conclude that persons born within the borders of the United States are natural born Citizens for Article II, Section 1 purposes, regardless of the citizenship of their parents." But they contradict this guidance by footnoting: "We note the fact that the Court in Wong Kim Ark did not actually pronounce the plaintiff a natural born Citizen using the Constitution's Article II language ..."
194 posted on
02/16/2011 3:31:54 AM PST by
edge919
To: devattel
Thank you for the citation. Unfortunately we will never know what the Supreme Court would have said as the plaintiffs never appealed it to the Supreme Court. One would think all citizens would like to hear what the Supreme Court has to say on this matter with regards to presidential requirements.
Nevertheless we know where the courts stand with regards to this issue. The final battleground will be between one or more states and the federal government. Will we ever get a definitive decision on this, one that isn’t based on the faulty premise of the 14th Amendment rewriting Article II definitions?
You’re welcome for the citation.
The plaintiffs in Ankeny did appeal to the Supreme Court of Indiana. The state Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal.
American elections are conducted on a state by state basis with an accumulation of each state’s electoral college votes determining the winner. It is likely that the US Supreme Court will not get involved in a states’ rights issue while there is a conservative majority on the Court.
If Ankeny had won and the Governor of Indiana had been ordered to invalidate Obama’s electoral college votes, that would have initiated a cascade of other states doing the same thing and invalidating the 2008 election on grounds of ineligibility of Obama for not having two American citizen parents.
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson