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Disqualifying Obama from Presidency. Many here (and in Kook World) think we can disqualify Obama for the presidency with a claim that he not a natural born citizen of the U.S. Here’s how we can do it! First, Obama has no responsibility to “prove” he is a citizen. If we want to disqualify him, we would have to bring civil suit asking for a declaratory judgment that he does not meet the constitutional requirements and therefore must be disqualified. We have a few problems here. USC Title 8 provides many other ways than being born within the bounds of the...

Jim Geraghty takes a look at longstanding blog buzz over Barack Obama’s birth certificate, which the campaign refused to release to the St. Petersburg Times in April: We tried to obtain a copy of Obama’s birth certificate, but his campaign would not release it and the state of Hawaii does not make such records public. Has anyone seen it? Why shouldn’t the record be in the public domain for presidential candidates? Geraghty walks through various rumors now circulating in the wake of the Obama campaign’s birth certificate blackout, including this one: Rumor Three: His mother did not want to name...

Bloggers are raising questions about Illinois Sen. Barack Obama's qualifications to be U.S. president, because of the secrecy over his birth certificate and the requirement presidents be "natural-born" U.S. citizens. Jim Geraghty, reporting on the Campaign Spot, cited the "unlikely" but still circulating rumor that Obama was born not within the United States, but elsewhere, possibly Kenya. Geraghty defined the concerns most clearly, stating: "If Obama were born outside the United States, one could argue that he would not meet the legal definition of natural-born citizen … because U.S. law at the time of his birth required his natural-born parent...

The Senate has unanimously declared John McCain a natural-born citizen, eligible to be president of the United States. That is the good news for the presumptive Republican nominee, who was born nearly 72 years ago in a military hospital in the Panama Canal Zone, then under U.S. jurisdiction. The bad news is that the nonbinding Senate resolution passed Wednesday night is simply an opinion that has little bearing on an arcane constitutional debate that has preoccupied legal scholars for many weeks.

LOS ANGELES — John McCain has been called an American hero. But is he a natural born citizen? A federal judge in California has been asked to determine if the Republican presidential candidate, who was born in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936, meets the legal test to qualify for the nation's highest office. The Constitution requires that only "natural born" citizens hold the presidency, a term on which the Founding Fathers did not elaborate. McCain has said there is no question about his eligibility, an assessment echoed by former Solicitor General Ted Olson, who is examining the issue for...

FT. WORTH, Texas -- Sen. Barack Obama's campaign announced he would co-sponsor legislation introduced yesterday by his political ally Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill to ensure that John McCain can become president, even though he was born in the Panama Canal Zone. The issue of McCain's eligibility was raised in a New York Times article noting the constitutional requirement that a U.S. president be a "natural-born citizen" had never been fully defined.

RICHARDSON, Texas (AP) — Republican presidential hopeful John McCain said Thursday the question of whether he can run for president, despite being born in the Panama Canal Zone, was put to rest 44 years ago in Barry Goldwater's run for the White House.McCain added that he doesn't know why his campaign sought legal analysis of whether his birth outside the continental United States might disqualify him from the presidency.The Constitution says only a "natural-born citizen" may serve as president.McCain's campaign asked former Solicitor General Ted Olson for a legal interpretation of the issue.McCain himself insists the issue was put to...

The first statute on the citizenship of children born abroad, enacted in 1790, stated: "The children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens: Provided, That the right of citizenship shall not descend to persons whose fathers have never been resident in the United States." Act of Mar. 26, 1790, ch. 3, 1 Stat. 104. Statutes passed in 1795 and 1802 similarly conditioned the citizenship of the child born abroad on the father's at least one-time residence in the United...

WASHINGTON: The question has nagged at the parents of Americans born outside the continental United States for generations: Dare their children aspire to grow up and become president? In the case of Senator John McCain of Arizona, the issue is becoming more than a matter of parental daydreaming. McCain's likely nomination as the Republican candidate for president and the happenstance of his birth in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936 are reviving a musty debate that has surfaced periodically since the founders first set quill to parchment and declared that only a "natural-born citizen" can hold the nation's highest office.

WASHINGTON — The question has nagged at the parents of Americans born outside the continental United States for generations: Dare their children aspire to grow up and become president? In the case of Senator John McCain of Arizona, the issue is becoming more than a matter of parental daydreaming. Mr. McCain’s likely nomination as the Republican candidate for president and the happenstance of his birth in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936 are reviving a musty debate that has surfaced periodically since the founders first set quill to parchment and declared that only a “natural-born citizen� can hold the nation’s...

NYT: MCCAIN'S BIRTHPLACE IN CANAL ZONE RAISES ELIGIBILITY QUESTIONS...

There have been some posts on this topic already, but they are incomplete and the Mccain campaign, Wikipedia, and other sources have weaseled around it with a reference to a 1790 act of Congress defining foreign-born children of US citizens as natural-born, thus meeting to requirements to run for President. I started digging into the Act of Congress that Mccain's campaign said got him around this (5th Congress, March 26th 1790), but found that this act was repealed by the same Congress, January 29th, 1795, RE-defining such children as just American citizens (not natural-born, as required for Pres. by the...

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. According to this Encyclopedia Britannica link, John Sidney McCain III was born in the Panama Canal Zone. Is he Constitutionallly eligible to be POTUS?

Only the Constitution can keep them apart Mayor Bloomberg’s political guru, Kevin Sheekey, continues his quest to get his boss in a position to run for president. According to a well-placed source, Sheekey’s latest project is to figure out if they could get California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger as a potential running mate. This summer, Bloomie and Arnie shared a few centrist photo ops. The East Coast–West Coast alliance would have its advantages in the Electoral College, certainly. But other parts of the Constitution are more problematic, like where it mentions that only a “natural-born Citizen … shall be eligible for...

This Backgrounder provides a detailed picture of the number and socio-economic status of the nation’s immigrant or foreign-born population, both legal and illegal. The data was collected by the Census Bureau in March 2007. Among the report’s findings: * The nation’s immigrant population (legal and illegal) reached a record of 37.9 million in 2007. * Immigrants account for one in eight U.S. residents, the highest level in 80 years. In 1970 it was one in 21; in 1980 it was one in 16; and in 1990 it was one in 13. * Overall, nearly one in three immigrants is an...

In sports, as in business, we often seek the best possible man/woman for the job. The person that will lead us on to victory. Is it time we choose this route when electing our leaders? Of course, historically, Napoleon and Hitler are examples of why we shouldn't. Nevertheless a President/prime minister who has the best interests of a country at heart shouldn't be discounted. Or should it?

Would you vote for Arnold for president of the United States?

Okay FReepers I need your help. Some of you who know me know that I'm a mom -- and that I went back to school a couple of years ago. I'm finally finishing my undergrad August 11. I've been accepted to the graduate program I wanted (my 1st choice) and everything so far has been hunky dory. As an undergrad, I've had unsubsidized Stafford loans and been to two different undergraduate institutions. I went to both public (graduated from the public one) and private high schools in the state of Texas. I'm married to an American citizen. Oh, and I...

(CBS) SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- The make-believe presidential ticket of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is gaining some attention. "There would be a fight to see who would be the presidential candidate and who would be the vice presidential candidate," Bloomberg quipped during a trip to California this week. "He would want to arm wrestle for the top spot; I would want to check the Constitution." Most know the Constitution says a president must be a natural born citizen. "It doesn't say anything about the vice president, but the 12th amendment to the constitution ratified in...

We hear it every day from the media and the presidential candidates. "We are a nation of immigrants!" Translation, "There is no need to secure our borders - I want my cheap labor and I don't care what it costs my fellow citizens!" Don't hold your breath for that statement of reality! It is true the USA allows more legal immigration than all other countries combined. Yes, we are the most welcoming nation on earth. And like a hostess who cooks and cleans for a week only to have her nare-do-well relatives show up, eat like pigs, trash the place,...

With the state's Austrian-born governor sitting 20 feet away in the audience, the bulk of the Republican candidates for president said Thursday they did not favor changing the Constitution to let Arnold Schwarzenegger or other foreign-born citizens run for president. That put the broad GOP field at odds with Schwarzenegger, who has long said he and other immigrant citizens should have the opportunity to run for president. Early on, moderator Chris Matthews polled the 10 Republicans on stage at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library near Simi Valley, asking whether they would support the constitutional amendment needed to allow Schwarzenegger to...

THE GOVERNOR OF the nation's largest state was reelected in a landslide in November, even though his Republican Party is a minority in California. He works with Democrats in a way that offers the rest of the country a model of much-needed bipartisanship. To kick off his second term, he has proposed the most ambitious healthcare and environmental reforms in the country, and he is also committed to a massive reconstruction of the state's infrastructure. Yet, oddly enough, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is not on the list of potential presidential candidates in 2008. Why? Because the founders were worried in the...

U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez said he favors stricter border patrols but sees nothing wrong with a foreign-born president. BY LESLEY CLARK lclark@MiamiHerald.com WASHINGTON - Florida's Republican Sen. Mel Martinez wouldn't mind seeing the U.S. Constitution amended so that foreign-born citizens could serve as president -- but not for himself. Speaking Friday at the National Press Club in advance of a return to the immigration debate in the Senate, the Cuban-born Martinez said the ban on foreign-born citizens serving as president is the ''one opportunity'' that's missing for striving immigrants in the United States. ''In a country where we don't put...

"I'll be back." That pledge from the Terminator traditionally has had special meaning in Arnold Schwarzenegger's hometown. But now — after the California governor refused to spare two convicted murderers in a row from their death sentences and showed no signs of relenting in another case up next month — the romance is over between Schwarzenegger and Graz, Austria's second-largest city. Acting on Schwarzenegger's orders two weeks after the Dec. 13 execution of former Crips gang leader Stanley Tookie Williams, city leaders Tuesday deleted all references to the bodybuilder-turned-governor on Web sites linked to Graz. Over the weekend, they also...

VIENNA -- Officials in Arnold Schwarzenegger's hometown of Graz quietly and under the cover of darkness removed giant metal letters spelling out his name on a soccer stadium. The California governor had asked for his name to be stricken from the 15,300-seat arena after critics in his birthplace, where opposition to capital punishment runs high, scorned him for refusing to block this month's execution of convicted killer Stanley Tookie Williams.

It's been a year and a half since Californians recalled their governor, Gray Davis, and elected Arnold Schwarzenegger to replace him. When Correspondent Morley Safer first reported on this story last October, Gov. Schwarzenegger (The Governator, as some called him) was riding high. His straight talk, his promise to balance the state budget, and the sheer, unpolitical way he seemed to practice the art of politics seemed to have endeared him to the electorate. Well, the honeymoon seems to be over. In a recent poll, Schwarzenegger's approval rating had dropped to 37 percent. Californians are no longer amused by his...

His protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger still wants to become president of the United States, according to Laurence Leamer, author of "Fantastic: The Life of Arnold Schwarzenegger.""That's his dream," Leamer told the Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly Tuesday night. "He thinks the Constitution should be changed [to make it possible for a foreign-born citizen to become president]." The Schwarzenegger biographer said Arnold's speech last summer to the GOP convention was the first step in his presidential campaign. "He intended that speech to be so dramatically positive that America would say: 'We need this man to lead...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said he never thought about running for president, denying he's the reason behind talk of amending the Constitution so immigrants can occupy the White House. "I don't think the idea is that all the push is because of me. I mean, I have never thought about running for president, and this is not my vision," Schwarzenegger said Sunday on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos." Asked why then he predicted in 1977 he would become president, Schwarzenegger suggested he wasn't serious. "You've got to have a little bit of sense of humor about all this,"...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 22 (Xinhuanet) -- The foreign-born population in the United States numbered 34.2 million in 2004, accounting for 12 percent of the country's total population, figures released by the Census Bureau on Tuesday showed. The number of foreign-born population was 2.3 percent higher than that in 2003. Of the foreign-born population, 53 percent were born in Latin America, 25 percent in Asia, 14 percent in Europe and the remaining 8 percent in other regions of the world, such as Africa and Oceania. Second-generation Americans, which are natives with one or both parents born in a foreign country, numbered 30.4...

Hatch, who has known Schwarzenegger for at least a decade, introduced the Equal Opportunity to Govern Amendment in July 2003. It would allow people who have been citizens for 20 years to serve as president. Schwarzenegger was naturalized in September 1983. In October 2003, four days before California's recall election that made Schwarzenegger governor, the Utah senator said in a speech in Washington that he could see Schwarzenegger as president. "If he turns out to be a tremendous leader and he proves to everybody in this country that he's totally dedicated to this country as an American," Hatch said, "we...

< THIS SEARCH THIS DOCUMENT GO TO Next Hit Forward New Bills Search Prev Hit Back HomePage Hit List Best Sections Help Contents Display GPO's PDF Display Congressional Record References Bill Summary & Status Printer Friendly Display - 1,415 bytes.[Help] XML Display[Help] Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to permit persons who are not natural-born citizens of the United States, but who have been citizens of the United States... (Introduced in House) HJ 2 IH 109th CONGRESS 1st Session H. J. RES. 2Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to permit persons who...

Third Term Presidency Amendment Idea . . . Should Be Nixed Kaye Grogan If there is one thing the country doesn’t need-- it’s a possible third term presidency from former President Bill Clinton. Why should he get a third chance to mess things up? It’s taken awhile to restore things back to normalcy in the White House, as it is. Rumors are swirling all around that a compromise could be reached between the Republicans and Democrats, if some of the Republicans would help to amend the Constitution allowing former or current presidents to run for a third term, in exchange...

Washington WhipersHere's the long shot of the year:Congressional Democrats will okay a constitutional amendment allowing naturalized citizens like California Governor Arnold Schwarznegger to run for president if Republicans help kill the 22nd Amendment barring third terms, thus clearing the way for another bid by Bill Clinton and President Bush.Right now its the talk of political strategists, but look for it to spread on Capitol Hill when US Senator Orrin Hatch re-introduces his plan to let naturalized citizens run for president after 20 years.

HELENA - A Bozeman legislator will ask the Montana Legislature to ratify a pending proposed federal constitutional amendment to allow foreign-born, naturalized Americans to run for president of the United States. Interest in the issue has grown because of the popularity of California's popular Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has dual U.S. and Austrian citizenship. He is now ineligible to run for president here because he was born in Austria. "This has nothing to do with Arnold Schwarzenegger," said Rep. Chris Harris, a Democrat. Under his proposal, Harris said, those foreign-born Americans could be citizens of only the United States...

WASHINGTON - Mario Diaz-Balart can be president, but his older brother Lincoln cannot. The U.S. Constitution says so. That's because there's an important difference in where the two Miami congressmen were born: Lincoln Diaz-Balart in Havana, Cuba; his brother in Fort Lauderdale, after the family fled the Castro revolution. The Constitution bars foreign-born citizens from becoming president, which also rules out two governors of large states: Democrat Jennifer Granholm of Michigan, born in Canada, and Austrian-born Arnold Schwarzenegger, a California Republican. Now, because of Schwarzenegger's political rock-star status, a campaign to amend the Constitution to make naturalized citizens eligible for...

Friday night, I was listening to AM 630, WMAL Talk Radio. They are the radio station in Washington, DC that has both Rush and Hannity. The local host at night is Chris Core. Most of the time, I get the feeling he really isn't as set in his opinions, as stated on the air. Last nigth was not an acception. He was arguing that the Constitution should be changed to allow naturalized citizens to become president of the United States. No one even brought up the one reason I will never support such a change. No matter how long a...

In the aftermath of the 2000 presidential election, liberals raged at the ''injustice'' of the Electoral College. Consequently, they demanded the standard ''ix,'' echoed every four years, of amending the Constitution to select the president by popular vote. But although conservatives breathed a sigh of relief in 2000, the delayed determination of Ohio’s vote this year, and its decisive role in President Bush’s reelection, predictably resulted in rumblings from the right that, indeed the Electoral College needs to be discarded. Once again however, the wisdom of the founders has been made evident, for those who are willing to recognize it....

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (news - web sites)'s wife, Maria Shriver, says America may someday amend the U.S. Constitution and elect a foreign-born president -- but it won't be her husband. "Forget about it. It is not going to happen. The process takes years, and this is as far as it goes," Shriver, the niece of former President John F. Kennedy, told Vanity Fair magazine amid talk of amending the Constitution to allow the Austrian-born film star to run for president. Shriver also said that despite their political differences -- she is a Democrat, he a...

Many adults in the United States reject the possibility of a foreign-born head of state, according to a poll by Gallup released by CNN and USA Today. 67 per cent of respondents would oppose a constitutional amendment that would allow a naturalized United States citizen to be elected president. Article II of the U.S. Constitution established that only "natural born" American citizens are eligible to become presidents. The prospect of constitutional changes has been discussed mostly due to Arnold Schwarzenegger. The actor—who was born in Austria but has been a U.S. citizen since 1983—won California’s recall election on October 2003,...

Like him or not, as Americans we should all stand together to say NO to any change in the US Constitution that would allow foreign-born, naturalized citizens to run for and hold the highest office in this great land...Apparently a movement is underway to change the US Constitution. We must stand up to this and oppose it. Please sign the No2Arnold Petition

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Lissa Morgenthaler-Jones, a 47-year-old Silicon Valley money manager, wasn't prepared to think much of Arnold Schwarzenegger when she met him at a fund-raiser two years ago. "I thought, 'Austrian meatball,'" she said. "But then five minutes after I met him, I thought, 'You could go all the way to the White House.'" Morgenthaler-Jones signed on with Schwarzenegger's gubernatorial campaign during last year's recall and served on his finance committee. A year after that historic election, she thinks the governor's office doesn't seem large enough for what she calls "Arnold Power." Morgenthaler-Jones last week launched www.AmendforArnold.com, a...

Alien Arnold California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has a plan for the future. Friends say the Austrian-born actor is looking for an "entity" to help him push for changing the nativity provision of the U.S. Constitution so he can run for president. Two ideas are under study. One is to work with Congress to change the law barring foreign-born American citizens from becoming president, then to sell it to states. Another is bolder and riskier: creating a third party to push his idea, a move that may lose him Republican support.

No doubt there are good reasons for amending the U.S. Constitution to allow naturalized citizens to run for president. But you won't read them among the arguments posted by a California group pushing to rewrite our Founding document so naturalized citizens can run for president. Its Web site acknowledges, "Naturalized citizens make a heckuva lot more effort to become Americans than those of us who were lucky and landed here at birth." But the group's entire reason for being isn't so much right or wrong: It's "Arnold," as in California's Republican governator. The effort calls home the Web site AmendForArnold.org,...

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Friday that foreign-born citizens should be allowed to run for president, a reform that would require amending the Constitution. "We are a country of immigrants. I think that it would be not a bad thing to try to figure out how to allow foreign-born people to become president," Albright told the Little Rock Rotary Club while in town to attend the opening of Bill Clinton's presidential library. Supporters of California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger have started an effort to amend the Constitution to allow immigrants to run for president. Schwarzenegger...

Today’s question: Should the United States consider amending the Constitution so that foreign-born citizens such as Arnold Schwarzenegger can run for president? Yes 14.0% No 86.0% Total Votes: 57

On the website of the group that's running ads that support changing the Constitution to let Arnold run for the White House, it says ... About the Founders of AmendUs.org --- Lissa Morgenthaler-Jones and Mimi Chen ... Lissa and Mimi were roommates freshman year at Princeton University. ... Lissa's a libertarian-turned-RINO (Republican in name only) and Mimi's a member of the Green Party. 'NUFF SAID - Churchillbuff

The cable television ads, set to begin running Monday, are from a Silicon Valley-based group that wants to amend the U.S. Constitution (search), which limits the presidency to natural U.S. citizens. Those who obtain their citizenship at birth are referred to as natural citizens, while those who become citizens after birth are referred to as naturalized citizens. Schwarzenegger was born in Austria but became a U.S. citizen in 1983. "You cannot choose the land of your birth. You can choose the land you love," Lissa Morgenthaler-Jones (search) says in the ads.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - Californians will soon see advertisements urging them to help give Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and other foreign-born citizens the chance to run for president. The cable television ads, set to being running Monday, are from a Silicon Valley-based group that wants to amend the U.S. Constitution, which limits the presidency to people born in the United States. Schwarzenegger was born in Austria but became a U.S. citizen in 1983. "You cannot choose the land of your birth. You can choose the land you love," Lissa Morgenthaler-Jones says in the ads. She is a San Francisco Bay area...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - Californians will soon see advertisements urging them to help give Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and other foreign-born citizens the chance to run for president. The cable television ads, set to being running Monday, are from a Silicon Valley-based group that wants to amend the U.S. Constitution, which limits the presidency to people born in the United States. Schwarzenegger was born in Austria but became a U.S. citizen in 1983. "You cannot choose the land of your birth. You can choose the land you love," Lissa Morgenthaler-Jones says in the ads. She is a San Francisco Bay area...

[Hollywood News]: London, Nov 4 : After expressing his strong desire to run for the US Presidency, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is now refusing to campaign for his golden chance. Currently, the Constitution doesn't allow foreign-born citizens to run for presidency in the US, and the Austria born actor had expressed his support for an amendment in a recent interview. However, now the 'Terminator' star has retracted his words by admitting that while he'd revel in the chance to vie for presidency, he's not going to press for any constitutional changes. "I won't campaign for it. It will become too...