Constitutional Crisis Coming? [Arizona eligibility bill]

New York Sun ^ | April 14, 2011 | Editors

[Plutarch]

Get set for a constitutional crisis in America. It’s not a certainty, but it’s certainly a possibility following the decision of the Arizona state senate to enact a measure to require a presidential candidate to present a birth certificate before he or she can get listed on the presidential ballot in the Grand Canyon State. It comes at the start of a presidential campaign in which President Obama is brushing aside demands that he authorize the release of an original certificate of his birth at Hawaii. This is the issue that Donald Trump has been trying to stir up at a national level, and Arizona is not the only state looking at such a law. So we may yet be confronted with the question in respect of who gets to decides ballot access in the presidential contest.

It happens that this is dealt with in the Constitution. It is in section 1 of Article II, which sets up the presidency and requires that the president be a natural born citizen. It also sets up the electoral college. After the fiasco that paired John Adams as president and Thos. Jefferson as vice president, the 12^th amendment was brought in to streamline the electoral college. But the method of choosing electors was unchanged. It says that they shall be appointed by each state “in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct . . .” The only restriction the Constitution puts on what the states can do is that no senator or representative or person holding an office of Trust under the United States can be made an elector...

[excerpt]

[Pilsner]

Surely if someone had told Ben Franklin in 1788 that the son of a subject of the British Crown could be President of the United States, he would have taken out his horsewhip.

Every President before Martin Van Buren was was the son of a subject of the British Crown.

[fightinJAG]

Those guys were specifically grandfathered in because it was going to take some time to get a population that had been American by birth.

But you’re right: I was speaking of Ben’s long view! :)

[fightinJAG]

I agree and disagree.

It’s not a solution for Obama.

But he could still win a state that way.

[Patton@Bastogne]

.


If the Dems. throw Obama under the bus ,they will never get the black vote again and will they find someone as destructive as O?


NOT EXACTLY ...


There are ways for the Democrats and Soros to get rid of Obama for 2012 ...

Make "Zero" an eternal National Hero ... and Martyr to Islam ...


An easy thing for Soros and Hillary to arrange ... and who gets the blame ?

We do ...


.

[TigerClaws]

A cancer is growing on the Presidency.

[grey_whiskers]

Cheers!

[mojito]

The WH and the Justice Department are terrified of this issue. For in addition to what you've so succinctly related, this regime has already demonized the State of Arizona over the immigration issue. Another attack would look like Obama was trying to undermine the sovereignty of the citizens of Arizona. This would quickly escalate beyond a “birther” question, and become an issue of whether Obama and Holder were attacking the principle of federalism itself.

And all this while the mystery man was trying to get himself re-elected to a second term. It's pure poison, and the way it's handled will tell us whether Obama thinks the risks of a legal challenge outweigh revealing whatever it is that he's hiding on that bc.