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New York Times
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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 highest office.
To date, no American to take the presidential oath has had an official birthplace outside the 50 states.
Mr. McCain was born on a military installation in the Canal Zone, where his mother and father, a Navy officer, were stationed. Mr. McCain is not the first person to find himself in these circumstances. The last Arizona Republican to be a presidential nominee, Barry Goldwater, faced the issue. He was born in the Arizona territory in 1909, three years before it became a state. But Goldwater did not win, and the view at the time was that since he was born in a continental territory that later became a state, he probably met the standard. It also surfaced in the 1968 candidacy of George Romney, who was born in Mexico, but again was not tested. The former Connecticut politician Lowell P. Weicker Jr., born in Paris, sought a legal analysis when considering the presidency, an aide said, and was assured he was eligible. Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr. was once viewed as a potential successor to his father, but was seen by some as ineligible since he had been born on Campobello Island in Canada.
Oh well, it was worth a shot.
I thought that a military installation is official US territory just like the land on which there is an embassy. So, therefore, you are technically born on US soil. Am I wrong?
Felix
That’s the 20 K dollar question. Their are no court cases to define what “Natural-born” means.
Also, the president and vice-president cannot be from the same state, as were Bush & Cheney, but it happened anyway!
Here’s a good link: http://www.usconstitution.net/consttop_citi.html
…”Who is a natural-born citizen? Who, in other words, is a citizen at birth, such that that person can be a President someday?
The 14th Amendment defines citizenship this way:”
The question is fully answered on this page.
#2,
Who cares
#3,
When the Supreme Court is in your pocket, who cares?
If he was born on a military base why does it matter. So suddenly all the people fighting in Iraq and others who were stationed around the world serving our country suddenly aren’t US Citizens anymore? Come on now.
I always thought you were a “natural born” if where born to US parents no matter where they lived. The only ones who make out on US Soil are ones with Foreign Parents.
Don’t forget, Bush & Co. have gone to great lengths to argue that foreign military bases are NOT U.S. soil (especially if they are at Guantanamo).
#8. Good point.
Not that I am voting for him but he is a natural citizen.
http://tinyurl.com/32X7ba
[Please use TinyUrl for long url – Ed.]
#3 – WRONG!
Memebers of the Electoral College cannot cast both of their votes for persons from the same state. While Cheney was a resident of Texas, his voting registration was in Wyoming.
Nice try though…
I always took that to be born of an American Citizen. Doesn’t matter what soil.
I can’t even believe there is any debate on whether or not someone who risked his life in Vietnam, was held in Hanoi’s infamous POW camp and was awarded a Silver Star, a Bronze Star, a Legion of Merit, a Purple Heart, and the Distinguished Flying Cross while service his country is eligible as president because he was born on foreign soil while his parents where serving his country. Seriously, he may not be my candidate, but it sure as shit isn’t because of any doubt of him being an “eligible” american.
Hey, Bush may have been born in the US of A, but he is a Saudi Agent in the Oval Office !!! We desperately need “Regime Change” here !!!
#8 Good point, Al. The military base exclusion reminds me of how Cheney also claimed exclusion from an executive order providing for oversight of the handling of classified information because he argued he was technically a member of the legislative branch. He argued that as President of the Senate, his office was not subject to oversight directed exclusively at the Executive branch. Of course, the next logical step in that argument is that Bush is not Cheney’s boss.
It’s amazing what people do when they have no scruples.
It’s ironic that this is actually a valid question. Yet on the flip side, a young lady can sneak through the desert by dark of night, deliver a baby in a border-town hospital at US taxpayer expense and there is no question that the child is eligible to become president since he/she is,of course, a citizen.
Title 8 CHAPTER 12 SUBCHAPTER III Part I Secion 1401 of the US Code is about as clear as any law can be.
Of course he is a natural-born citizen. Anyone that puts forth otherwise is an idiot.
#11 Nice try. Setting the tone for his reign, Cheney changed his voting residence to his vacation home in Wyoming the night before his
puppet announced dickie as his running mate.
It’s called slease – sneak around any laws in your way.
#3 – Also, the president and vice-president cannot be from the same state, as were Bush & Cheney, but it happened anyway!
You mean they are both from a cozy little gated community in Massachusetts? Because Bush is just a carpetbagger in Texas. He’s really just a spoiled silver spoon brat from New England.
—-
While it is true that to serve you must be a natural born citizen, and it is true that no sitting President has ever been born outside the US, it is also true that Presidential Candidates have not all been born inside the US – although those candidates were all born in territories or military bases.
#17 GigG wrote, “Of course he is a natural-born citizen. Anyone that puts forth otherwise is an idiot.”
I absolutely agree, but there are some strict constructionists who argue that we’re bound by the most precise, literal meaning of the phrase “natural born citizen” and any law other than an amendment that would contradict that meaning would be unconstitutional.
“who argue that we’re bound by the most precise, literal meaning of the phrase “natural born citizen”
Would that rule out caesarean births? Anesthetic medications and surgical interventions such as episiotomies, forceps and ventouse deliveries?
#21 newglenn, lol
You’ll have to take that up at the next meeting of the Cult of Strict Constructionists 😉
It is often said that the fathers were prescient… maybe by “natural born” they meant viviparous, “Brave New World” style. Or maybe they had something against the caesarian section, because of its effects on the immune system. But, being serious now all of a sudden, they must have meant “natural born” as opposed to “naturalized”. Doesn’t say anything about *where* you are born.
If you could go back to 1776, it is possible that what they had in mind by “natural born” had more to do with the candidacy of Obama than with that of McCain. It wasn’t so long ago that many people regarded the union of different races to be unnatural.
Sorry, but this an actual unanswered question in Constitutional law. The requirement that the President be a “natural born citizen”, or a citizen at the time of the time of the adoption of the Constitution, was specifically intended to rule out foreigners, and so precise wording can be important.
Section 1401, cited above establishes who is a “citizen at birth”, but that may not be the same as a “citizen by birth”, or a “natural born citizen”. There is a strong case to be made that a “citizen at birth” is in fact a “natural born citizen” in the meaning of the Constitution, but since the Court has never ruled on the validity of that argument, there is no explicit case law.
This is one of the interesting things about living in a Common Law country. There are issues that are truly undecided until a court rules. This is one. And really the only way for the question to be answered is for someone like McCain to be elected, his election contested and the court rule. Or, somewhat weaker, for such a person to be elected, and serve uncontested for their full term. Until then, everyone gets an opinion. Some are better grounded than others, but they are all just opinions.
Brons
Well I guess that leaves out Sen. Obama as if the word continental United States is used that does not include Alaska or Hawaii. This sounds like something Howard Dean would come up with.
“natural born citizen” means you were a Citizen (US) from birth. You never became a US Citizen because you were one from birth.
That’s how I see it being a “strict constructionists”
That was put in there so some foreign government couldn’t sneak someone in to take over. This being the highest office in the land.
The debate being how long do you have to be a Citizen to be Pres. Had to be longer than the other offices so they said screw it. You have to always been a citizen to be Pres.
“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.”
The way I read that is the only Foreign born people who could become President have to be born before or on the day Constitution was signed. 11/17/1787
Way to go #26.
“The way I read that is the only Foreign born people who could become President have to be born before or on the day Constitution was signed. 11/17/1787”
And THERE’s the rub. McCain certainly was “foreign born”. He was born in a foreign country–Panama. The question is in addition to being “foreign born” was he “born foreign”, if you will? The law is very clear on citizens born within the US and foreigners like Governor Schwartzeneger who are naturalized citizens. The tricky parts are the children of US citizens born outside the US.
Personally, I think it extremely unlikely that the court would ever decide the question against McCain, but it is an open question and one that it is reasonable to discuss in terms of legal and Constitutional theory. Doing so not only illuminates this problem but the whole question of how exactly you evaluate “founders’ intent” and the precision of strict construction and so forth.
Brons
Barry Goldwater was born in the Arizona Territory, and I remember some discussion of this “problem” back in 1964.
Senator McCain himself brought up the Goldwater case today and–mistakenly–claimed that the issue had gone up to the Supreme Court back then and was settled. Sadly that isn’t so.
By the way a couple of years back, John Dean wrote about this issue, in Writ, the FindLaw journal (seen here: http://tinyurl.com/yr3r76 ). As with most people who have studied the issue, his conclusion is that the language in the Constitution is anclear, and outdated, and should be fixed. Perhaps McCain’s candidacy will help bring that about.
Brons.