← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Brooke
Thread ID: 9626 | Posts: 2 | Started: 2003-09-08
2003-09-08 11:49 | User Profile
[url=http://startribune.com/stories/587/4079419.html]A foreign-born president? 2 bills take aim at the ban[/url]
New York Times
Published September 7, 2003
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Comparisons between the actor who would be California governor and the actor who was California governor usually end with the same codicil.
Even if Arnold Schwarzenegger wins the recall election, he can never rise to the presidency, as Ronald Reagan of Dixon, Ill., did. Not necessarily because he lacks Reagan's political savvy, but because he was born in Austria.
**But in the legislative carousel of Washington, everything is open to debate, even the 216-year-old constitutional requirement that presidents be native-born citizens. That article is encountering rising resentment from some lawmakers who regard it as antiquated and discriminatory.
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R.-Utah, called it "decidedly un-American" to allow only native-born citizens to hold the highest office in the land.**
"Ours is a nation of immigrants," Hatch argued on the Senate floor this summer when he proposed a measure to eliminate the requirement.
Citing the former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and Madeleine Albright, the Bush Cabinet members Elaine Chao and Mel Martinez, and Michigan's governor, Jennifer Granholm, Hatch said, "[u]None of these well-qualified, patriotic United States citizens could be a lawful candidate for president[/u]."
A similar proposal in the House would also eliminate Article II's "natural born" requirement, which Hatch said "was driven largely by the concern that a European monarch, like King George III's second son, the Duke of York, might be imported to rule the United States."
Under Hatch's proposal, anyone who has been a U.S. citizen for at least 20 years and a resident for at least 14 years could be a candidate for commander in chief. The House version, sponsored by Rep. Vic Snyder, D.-Ark., calls for a candidate to have been a naturalized citizen for at least 35 years.
Tall task
Snyder said he considered the Senate proposal an encouraging sign but conceded that Congress was not likely to act on the measure soon.
"I think this is going to be a process of educating members," he said.
Both proposals would require amending the Constitution, which has been done only 27 times. A constitutional amendment requires approval by two-thirds of both the House and the Senate. Then at least three-quarters of the state legislatures must ratify it.
The movement to reverse the ban has created some odd alliances. Liberal Rep. Barney Frank, D.-Mass., who presides over a suburban Boston district with a large population of Portuguese and Russian immigrants, is a cosponsor of the House legislation. The conservative commentator George Will has also written in favor of abolishing the ban, arguing that it has an "unpleasantly nativist tang."
When Hatch introduced his amendment in July, he noted that not only do the foreign-born serve in the military, in Congress, on the Supreme Court and in the Cabinet, but more than 700 people born in other countries have received the Medal of Honor.
Jeffrey Rosen, an associate professor of law at George Washington University, said the new proposals faced challenges. Not only is the Constitution extremely difficult to amend, Rosen said, but immigrants in the United States have historically reaped far fewer rights than native-born citizens.
"Aliens don't have a very broad political constituency," Rosen said. "We learned that after 9/11, when Americans were perfectly willing to tolerate restrictions on aliens."
But Noah Feldman, an assistant professor of law at New York University, said amending the provision would bring the Constitution in line with American values.
"It's discriminating," Feldman said of the current requirement. "It's creating, in a way, a kind of second-class citizenship. I think we now recognize that once you're a citizen, you're a citizen."
Citing the former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and Madeleine Albright, the Bush Cabinet members Elaine Chao and Mel Martinez, and Michigan's governor, Jennifer Granholm, Hatch said, "None of these well-qualified, patriotic United States citizens could be a lawful candidate for president." And they're trying to tell us this is a "bad thing"?
Excuse me while I puke on their definition of "well-qualified, patriotic".
2003-09-15 23:08 | User Profile
I would much rather see the term limits eliminated for Presidents than allow foreigners into the White House. :D