The Natural-Born Citizen Clause and Presidential Eligibility: An Approach for Resolving Two Hundred Years of Uncertainty. Jill A. Pryor. The Yale Law Journal, Vol. 97, No. 5 (Apr., 1988), pp. 881-899.
I’m assuming you can track this down on Lexis-Nexis. I’m feeling much better about McCain’s legal situation. The 1790 naturalization statute is the clearest indication of what the term “natural born” meant at the time of the Founding Fathers: children born of American parents are natural-born as they automatically are conferred citizenship at birth. Also, the Founding Fathers easily could have used a more precise term—”native born”—yet elected not to do so.
So how come TWO citizens (including a lawyer!) have gotten up the gumption to file suits against McCain on this issue and none to do so against Obama? I wonder if WJC is working on this behind the scenes while his wife makes nice to get put on the ticket and presumably become the automatic heir apparent once Obama is disqualified by the Supreme Court. I can just hearing the teeth-gnashing from the left already: that nasty old Supreme Court has once again interfered with the will of the people to decide an election... :-)
Well Ms. Prior's view is just another Yalies' view. The best current pronouncements are in law review articles published in the Boston College Law Review and in an article analyzing all of the authorities by John Dean, Nixon's White House counsel, all of whom come to a contrary conclusion.
Doesn't mean any one of them can't be correct.
However the argument inferred in the second sentence of your first paragraph--he was natural born because as a result of his two citizen parents, he was a citizen when he came down the shute, is the best substantive argument on McCain's behalf. I think it fails because if Congress can override the Constitution with that rule, they could override it with a rule that made blue eyed persons born within a hundred yards of the Yellow River (and no other connection with the United States) Citizens at birth. I don't think the Supreme Court will view that as a reasonable interpretation of the Constitution.
It wouldn't surprise you to learn that WJC might become involved in the Obama case--he hadn't yet as of last week. But he isn't the most likely culprit on the suits with regard to McCain. An action has been started in each of the states where McCain got delegates to decertify his delegates on the grounds he is not eligible to serve. Careful study of the credentials rules for the Republican Convention will provide a good clue as to who benefits from pendency of these actions.
>>>It wouldn’t surprise you to learn that WJC might become involved in the Obama case
Danny Pearl, former WSJ reporter, was covering the rat routes and money laundering from Kenya to Dubai, et al when he was killed. The first in a series was on the Tanzanite mining. He was never able to release follow up stories. I do believe he had data for the following series on his computer though. I think WSJ handed them over to the FBI.
Pearl’s article is here, in the comments section of this thread on the US Treasuring flagging Al Qaeda Finances.