Burton Supports Birth Certificate Requirement For Presidential Candidates

There are only two requirements to be eligible to serve as president of the United States under Article II, Section 5 of the U.S. Constitution: you must be at least 35 years of age; and you must be a natural born citizen. There is no federal law, however, that requires a presidential candidate to prove he or she meets those two constitutional requirements. Presidential candidates who file statements of candidates with the FEC and respective state election authorities need only file an attestation requirement that he or she satisfies the constitutional requirements. In practice, state election authorities have bounced from state election ballots in the past third party candidates who failed to meet one of the requirements, but no major party candidate has been similarly denied access to the ballot despite issues raised about their eligibility. To remedy this gap in enforcement of the constitutional requirements, U.S. Rep. Bill Posey (FL) earlier this year filed HR 1503, which would require presidential candidates to file with the FEC a copy of the candidate's birth certificate, together with any other evidence as may be necessary to establish the qualifications for eligibility under the Constitution. U.S. Rep. Dan Burton (D-IN) has signed on as a co-sponsor of the legislation.

Radio talk show host Abdul Hakim-Shabazz, who is doing the bidding of Burton primary opponent and Ice Miller lobbyist Luke Messer, instinctively seized on Burton's co-sponsorship of HR 1503 as something to be mocked. "In other words, Burton has joined the Obama 'not really a citizen and why won’t he show us his birth certificate even though if we saw it we would call it a fake' crowd," Shabazz opined. You and I already know what a hypocrite he has become. Contrast his latest comments with his view on Indiana's Voter ID law. Shabazz thinks citizens casting votes in elections should be subjected to greater evidentiary requirements than presidential candidates' evidentiary requirements. "There's always some incidental costs to voting — you can't come to the polls naked," an Indianapolis law professor, Abdul Hakim-Shabazz, who served on the task force that wrote the rules, says. "The remarkable thing is that for all the talk of disenfranchisement, Indiana has had seven elections since, and those challenging the law have yet to turn up a plaintiff who credibly can say the law stymied him," Mr. Hakim-Shabazz says. No, he is not an Indianapolis law professor, but you get the point.

If you want to get a license to drive in Indiana, the requirements imposed by the Bureau of Motor Vehicles are even greater. The BMV requires you to produce the following: one document proving your identity; one document proving your social security number; one document proving your lawful status in the U.S. (e.g., birth certificate, U.S. passport, consular report of birth abroad or green card); and two documents proving your Indiana residence. Yes, we impose tougher document requirements on driver's license applicants than we do presidential candidates.

The irony is that those same BMV workers who issue driver's licenses also register new voters. During a meeting of the Indiana chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association with BMV officials this week, local immigration attorneys, including me, discussed with BMV officials the problem with workers registering non-citizens to vote, which proves quite problematic when an immigration attorney later petitions to make the permanent resident a naturalized citizen. The problem is that BMV workers are not properly trained to ask only U.S. citizens to register to vote. The documentary evidence the license applicant furnishes to them establishes whether they are a U.S. citizen. Nonetheless, BMV workers frequently ask and register non-citizens to register to vote. The Secretary of State's office has no procedures in place to detect these problems, allowing non-citizens to vote in Indiana elections. The BMV thinks the applicant should know whether they are qualified to register, but you have to remember that there are sometimes language barriers and BMV workers do not show the applicants the list of requirements before registering them to vote (i.e. U.S. citizen, resident of Indiana and at least 18 years of age).

So when you really think about it, the legislation Dan Burton is co-sponsoring is quite sensible. It's amazing that such a requirement has not been imposed before. Shabazz can go ahead and make fun of Burton all he wants on this one, but I suspect he won't be scoring points for Burton's opponents. They would all be better off if Shabazz just kept his mouth shut and didn't meddle in this election like he did the recent Senate District 30 GOP caucus race.