Obama called to Georgia court to defend primary eligiblity

[Drewish]

You mean Obama might lose Georgia on election day?!!!

[Seth]

It's bullshit, no such order, Seth. Try again.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10169608

You obviously don't know how civil process works. In such cases, the plaintiff prepares the subpoena and has it served. It's valid court process. The judge refused to quash it, which means he's read the complaint and has found that there is a valid complaint which Obama must answer. There will be lots of legal manuvering by Obama, including a claim that a sitting president shouldn't be called into a state court, but as the materials I cited note, his legal team has provided no precedent or law which makes the President immune from civil process alleging he is ineligible to run in a Georgia primary.

He filed the state paperwork to run in Georgia, so he is subject to Georgia state election law, which requires that every candidate for any elected office be qualified to hold that office as a precondition for running. A valid case has been filed and not dismissed.

By refusing to quash the subpoena, and by scheduling a hearing, the judge is saying that there is a legitimate question to be resolved, and Obama is therefore required to answer the complaint or lose by default, which would keep him off the Georgia ballot. Now, it may be that Obama himself will not be required to appear, and that out of deference to the office, his legal team will be allowed to make his case, but that doesn't mean the case is going to go away, and that scares the ever-living shit out of the Democrats, because they know they might well end up without Obama as the candidate in Georgia, which automatically loses them 15 electoral votes.

[Seth]

You mean Obama might lose Georgia on election day?!!!

Yup.

Worse for him, if he loses this case, even by default, it will encourage people in other states to file similar challenges to Obama's eligibility to run in those state primaries, and if they prevail, Obama loses ALL the electoral votes in every state that occurs in.

Since all it takes is one person with a legitimate claim to file a lawsuit challenging his primary eligibility, if Obama refuses to fight the suits, or loses them, he can be shut out of the election.

This is not small potatoes by any stretch of the imagination, and it's likely to get kicked to the federal courts and perhaps the Supreme Court on an expedited basis.

[Seth]

Hey, maybe the papers are held in an armored box.

No "papers" needed really. It's an undisputed fact that even Obama has acknowledged that his father was a foreign-born national who fucked Obama's mom while here on a foreign student visa and then left, never becoming a citizen.

So, this is purely a matter of law and constitutional interpretation. If the term "natural born citizen" means a person born in the US to two parents who are both US citizens, then Obama is clearly ineligible to hold office or run again. And as of now, that's what the Supreme Court has ruled in the single case that's on-point, according to the plaintiffs in the case.

The key has been getting a case before a court. The problem with all the "birther" cases has not been the merits of their claims so much as their standing to sue in the first place. The federal courts have ruled that a citizen doesn't have standing to sue over Obama's place of birth.

But this case is different. It doesn't directly challenge his eligibility to BE President, it challenges his eligibility to RUN FOR a second term in Georgia. As such, it's a matter of state election law, and Georgia requires that any person running for office be qualified to hold the office. Therefore, a timely challenge to running for office based on a valid complaint about the individual's eligibility is always in order, and that's what's happened here.

Obama's caught in a cleft stick; either he appears and admits that his father was not a US citizen, which everybody already knows (and his legal team may end up stipulating to to avoid having Obama appear in court), or he refuses to defend the complaint and will lose by default, which will keep him off the Georgia ballot and will encourage other people in other states to file similar cases. Or, he stipulates to the facts and the judge rules on his eligibility in Georgia and he loses. Or, the judge rules in his favor.

As it stands, the plaintiffs have a very strong precedent from the Supreme Court stating the meaning of "natural born citizen" that does not favor Obama at all.

[Animavore]

This story hasn't even made news. Not even if I Google 'obama' on the News Search do I get this story up. Even if I put in 'Georgia' it is way down the page with only a small couple of articles in mainly Republican papers.

Is this story really as serious as made out?

[laklak]

I haven't seen anything about it either, and can't find anything on the net. SCOTUS needs to hear it on an expedited basis and rule once and for all what a "natural born" citizen means. The "two citizen parents born in the U.S." is NOT the current definition. Anyone born anywhere with at least one U.S. parent is a natural citizen, as opposed to a "naturalized" citizen, which is the distinction the Constitution made. There are some residency and age requirements (for the parents) if born in a foreign country, but they are not well defined, and are likely unconstitutional anyway. Additionally, the 14th amendment overruled at least one of the cases cited by the plaintiffs, the Dred Scott decision. Also, if Obama is held to be ineligible to run, then he is ineligible to serve, which calls into question every action he's taken while president. There is no way in hell SCOTUS is going to open that can of worms, so this is far from a "slam dunk".

[amused]

Yeah, it's mostly just running in the right wing loony presses and blogs as any sort of 'serious' story. Some of the left blogs have commented, and noted that Obama is ignoring the judge's call.

[Mr P]

[Ian]

This story hasn't even made news. Not even if I Google 'obama' on the News Search do I get this story up. Even if I put in 'Georgia' it is way down the page with only a small couple of articles in mainly Republican papers.

Is this story really as serious as made out?

No. Seth's lost in fantasy land. He's smart enough to know that 1) the election will go on like normal, with the President on the ballot in all 50 states, and 2) Obama has a decent chance of winning. So he's comforting himself with idle fantasy.

[maiforpeace]

This story hasn't even made news. Not even if I Google 'obama' on the News Search do I get this story up. Even if I put in 'Georgia' it is way down the page with only a small couple of articles in mainly Republican papers.

Is this story really as serious as made out?

No. Seth's lost in fantasy land. He's smart enough to know that 1) the election will go on like normal, with the President on the ballot in all 50 states, and 2) Obama has a decent chance of winning. So he's comforting himself with idle fantasy.

Nothing wrong with a good fantasy...unfortunately with this one, there won't be a satisfying conclusion.

[klr]

I haven't seen anything about it either, and can't find anything on the net. SCOTUS needs to hear it on an expedited basis and rule once and for all what a "natural born" citizen means. The "two citizen parents born in the U.S." is NOT the current definition. Anyone born anywhere with at least one U.S. parent is a natural citizen, as opposed to a "naturalized" citizen, which is the distinction the Constitution made. There are some residency and age requirements (for the parents) if born in a foreign country, but they are not well defined, and are likely unconstitutional anyway. Additionally, the 14th amendment overruled at least one of the cases cited by the plaintiffs, the Dred Scott decision. Also, if Obama is held to be ineligible to run, then he is ineligible to serve, which calls into question every action he's taken while president. There is no way in hell SCOTUS is going to open that can of worms, so this is far from a "slam dunk".

Exactimento. No-one wants to go there. No-one with any sense anyway.

And this seems to be bothering the major news outlets not a bit.

[FBM]

In addition to historical and textual analysis, numerous holdings and references in federal (and state) cases for more than a century have clearly indicated that those born in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction (i.e., not born to foreign diplomats or occupying military forces), even to alien parents, are citizens at birth or by birth, and are natural born, as opposed to naturalized, U.S. citizens. There is no provision in the Constitution and no controlling American case law to support a contention that the citizenship of one s parents governs the eligibility of a native born U.S. citizen to be President.

Emphasis mine.

http://www.legistorm.com/score_crs/show/id/82388.html

[Seth]

This story hasn't even made news. Not even if I Google 'obama' on the News Search do I get this story up. Even if I put in 'Georgia' it is way down the page with only a small couple of articles in mainly Republican papers.

Is this story really as serious as made out?

Google "judge georgia primary obama"

And it's no surprise that the left-stream media aren't covering it, is it?

But it's for real.

[FBM]

There's still the problem of the bit I quoted just above...especially the highlighted parts. I don't see how they've got a case.

[Seth]

From the amicus brief:

The only Supreme Court decision which has directly construed the natural-born citizen
clause from Article 2, Section 1, is Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1874). In that case,
Virginia Minor petitioned the court to determine whether women were equal citizens to
men, and further argued that if she was a citizen, her right to vote was protected by the
14th Amendment, which she also claimed made her a citizen. The Court's unanimous
decision declined to construe the 14th Amendment's citizenship clause. Instead, the Court
held that Minor was a citizen prior to the adoption of the 14th Amendment.
The Court established her citizenship by defining the word "citizen", and then identifying
the class of “natural-born citizens”, to which she belonged. Their holding was that
natural-born citizens were citizens at birth who do not require the 14th Amendment to
establish their membership in the nation. The Court also noted that persons, who were not
eligible to the class of natural-born citizens, might, however, be citizens under the 14th
Amendment:
26
"The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens.
Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common-law, with the
nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never
doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens
became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or naturalborn
citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners." Minor v. Happersett, 88
U.S. 162, 168.
There are two classes of persons discussed in the above quotation. Those born in the
country of citizen parents were labeled by the Court as “natives, or natural-born citizens”,
but these were also further identified as being “distinguished from aliens or foreigners”.
The distinction is crucial.
On one side are those who have no citizenship other than that of the United States, as
distinguished from those on the polar opposite side, who have absolutely no claim to
citizenship in the United States; “These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as
distinguished from aliens or foreigners.” Id. Those who fall in between these two
extremes make up a third class of persons whose citizenship status, the Court noted, was
subject to doubt:
“Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the
jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of the parents. As to this class
there have been doubts, but never as to the first.” Id. (Emphasis added.)
Had this third class been contemplated as having any claim to natural-born citizen status,
the distinction employed by the court would not make sense. The distinction appears to
have been created to more specifically identify the class of persons who were naturalborn
citizens under Article 2, Section 1, since the two classes discussed are in direct
opposition to each other.

From Minor:

Additions might always be made to the citizenship of the United States in two ways: first, by birth, and second, by naturalization. This is apparent from the Constitution itself, for it provides6 that 'no person except a natural-born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President,'7 and that Congress shall have power 'to establish a uniform rule of naturalization.' Thus new citizens may be born or they may be created by naturalization.

The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their [88 U.S. 162, 168] parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first.

So, the only case law we have supports the claim of the plaintiffs in this current case.

That makes their case rather strong.

There are three classes of citizens in the United States:

Naturalized citizens: Those who are born outside the US to foreign parents who are naturalized according to laws promulgated by Congress.

Citizens: Those who are born within the boundaries of the United States regardless of the citizenship of one or both parents.

Natural born citizens: Those who are born within the boundaries of the United States to parents who are themselves citizens of the United States.

The first and third classes are explicitly mentioned in the Constitution, while the second class exists by inference, as the Minor court said.

And the ONLY place the third class is mentioned in the Constitution is in the requirements and qualifications to hold the office of President. This means, by way of the common rules of statutory construction and interpretation, that the words "natural born" mean something, and they mean something different and distinct from "citizen," "naturalized citizen," or "person."

So the Georgia court is going to have to decide what the meaning of "natural born citizen" is, and it's perfectly clear that it's not the same thing as "citizen" or "naturalized citizen" so it must mean something else, and the only difference between the three classes of citizenship are where the child is born and the citizenship of the child's parents when the child is born.