The Associated Press

Is this man a Panamanian-American?

Featured Topic | Posted 10 weeks 5 days ago

Does John McCain have a citizenship problem?

The question has nagged at the parents of Americans born outside the continental United States for generations: Dare their children aspire to grow up and become president? In the case of Sen. John McCain, the issue is becoming more than a matter of parental daydreaming.

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.

Does McCain's place of birth create a barrier to the presidency? Should the court's clarify what "natural-born" means?

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Ben likes: Natural born foolishness

Matthew Franck/Bench Memos

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised when frivolity goes mainstream. This morning's New York Times carries an article raising the issue whether John McCain, born in the Panama Canal Zone while his father, a Navy admiral, was stationed there, is a "natural born citizen" under Article II of the Constitution and therefore eligible to be president. Of course he is. I spent a weekend a while ago in an intermittent e-mail debate with a few other constitutional law scholars on this question, and I was amazed at how such a simple question could be made so needlessly complex.

The last line of the Times article, quoting the author of a long-ago law review article, is that "it is certainly not a frivolous issue." I think that's just what it is, Ptolemaic epicycles of abstruse constitutional reasoning to the contrary notwithstanding.

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Joel likes: Natural born confusion

Lawrence Friedman/Guardian (UK)

The bottom line is that no one really knows what "natural born citizen" means, and the supreme court would have the final say. Justices who were willing to pick the winner of the 2000 election (albeit by a 5-4 vote) likely would not stand in the way of a McCain inaugural. But whatever happens with McCain, we must decide whether 18th-century concerns about Baron von Steuben should continue to dictate presidential eligibility in 21st-century America, and whether we should continue to send an unmistakable message of exclusion to tens of millions of naturalised Americans.

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Thoughts

Natural born vs. born abroad

Submitted on March 1st, 2008 by eyffhl

Two of my children were born in a military hospital in Germany. They were citizens of Germany; NOT the United States. To become American citizens they had to be naturalized. Neither of them can ever become president. Why is John McCain different?
Consider the children of illegal ailens: They are automatically citizens of the U. S. if they are born here. To become citizens of Mexico they would have to naturalized there.

Another perspective. . .

Submitted on February 29th, 2008 by KansasGirl

I'm an eternal fan of the op-ed page at Military.com - they're pretty good at getting intelligent answers without all the hype. Refreshing. Here's some more food for thought on the topic -

http://www.military.com/opinion/0,15202,...

Actually Franck might be

Submitted on February 29th, 2008 by oldgoat

Actually Franck might be surprised that Ron Paul has a question about it and so did Newsmax. Hardly the liberal bastions I would think. The argument for him being legal is from a congressional act of 1790 that says those born overseas by US parents are considered natural born citizens.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article...

Ron Paul and Newsmax had these opinions:

http://www.dailypaul.com/node/36712

http://www.newsmax.com/lowell_ponte/John...

My question would be then if a act of congress is enough to "clarify" a portion of the constitution at what point do we need a constitutional ammendment? If the act of congress is good enough then what other portions of the constitution will need to be clarified?

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