Thursday, January 05, 2012

First Judge In America Recognizes Rule Of Law Regarding Obama Eligibility

It's been in our U.S. Constitution since its adoption in 1787. No person except a "natural born citizen" is eligible to hold the office of president of the United States. Many legal scholars have long taken the position that only children born to U.S. citizen parents qualify as natural born citizens. The only Supreme Court holding we have to rely upon supports that position. Yet Barack Obama, who by his own admission was born the son of a foreign citizen and was a dual citizen at birth, was allowed to become president of the United States after his election in 2008 despite the fact that dozens of lawsuits were brought against him challenging his eligibility to hold that office. In every single instance, judges summarily dismissed the lawsuits claiming the citizens who brought the suits lacked standing to challenge Obama's eligibility. That all changed this week down in Georgia. Judge Michael Malihi of Georgia's Office of State Administrative Hearings denied a motion by President Obama's attorneys to dismiss a complaint filed by citizen David Weldon challenging Obama's eligibility to appear on the state's 2012 ballot because he is not a natural born citizen. From Judge Malihi's Order:
Code Section 21-2-5(a) states that every candidate for "federal and state office" must meet the qualifications for holding that particular office, and this Court has seen no case law limiting this provision, nor found any language that contains an exception for the office of president or stating that the provision does not apply to the presidential preference primary. Although the word "candidate" is not explicitly defined in the Code, Section 21-2-193 states that the political party for the presidential preference primary "shall submit to the Secretary of State a list of the names of the candidates of such party to appear on the presidential preference primary ballot." Accordingly, this Court finds that Defendant is a candidate for federal office . . .
This Court finds no basis under Georgia law why the qualification requirements contained in Section 21-2-5 would not apply to a candidate for the office of president in the presidential preference primary.
Accordingly, this Court finds that Defendant is a candidate for federal office who has been certified by the state executive committee of a political party, and therefore must, under Section 21-2-5, meet the constitutional and statutory qualifications for holding the office being sought.
Not surprisingly, a local Georgia newspaper account of Judge Malihi's order derisively referred to Weldon's attorney as a "birther attorney" who was claiming "President Barack Obama isn't an American citizen", pretending there is no constitutional distinction between a natural born citizen and a citizen. If the reporter had bothered reading Weldon's court filing, he would have understood this. The American Thinker explains the narrowly-drawn challenge:
The matter before this Court has nothing to do with the birth place of the Defendant, nor does it assert that he is not a citizen of the United States. In fact, limited to this challenged primary election, the Plaintiff will stipulate that the Defendant was born in Hawaii, that the Defendant is a U.S. Citizen, and that the Defendant was Constitutionally-qualified to serve as a U.S. Senator. The Plaintiff makes no assertion regarding the Defendant's passports, or social security number, or any other fact related to the Defendant, other than the one fact asserted at the beginning of this opposition: that the Defendant's father was not a U.S. citizen.
Contrary to the Defendant's assertions, the issue presented by the Plaintiff is grounded on one uncontestable fact, and one clear definition from the U.S. Supreme Court. See Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162, 167 (1875).
The 1875 women's suffrage case,  Minor v. Happersett, is the only controlling Supreme Court precedent we have to rely upon currently in determining the meaning of "natural born citizen" and the case remains good law to this day. Justice Waite wrote in the majority opinion:
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.
It is indeed refreshing to see that there is at least one judge in this country who believes that Barack Obama is not above the law. If Charlie White can be taken to hell in back over whether he should have registered at one precinct instead of another and is facing the forfeiture of his office and multiple felony charges against him, Obama can defend his status as a "natural born citizen" in a court of law as any candidate whose eligibility under that constitutional requirement is challenged.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Amen. Great posting. Thank you for excellent reporting and analysis.

Ghostwriter Judiciary said...

Gary, you have omitted the crucial language in Minor which said that the particular issue was not resolved:

"Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first. For the purposes of this case it is not necessary to solve these doubts."

Gary R. Welsh said...

There has also been new research uncovered that makes it clear that early administrations, including that of James Madison, specifically rejected the notion that British common law for determining "natural born citizen" had been implicitly incorporated into use through the adoption of the U.S. Constitution. The Madison administration specifically rejected the notion that one became a citizen by mere birth on U.S. soil if the parents were not U.S. citizens.

M Theory said...

How long until the judge is condescendingly labeled a "birther"?