# McCain isn't born in the US! Can he even be president?



## R y a n (Apr 4, 2005)

WOW! This might seriously change EVERYTHING!

You heard it here first!


McCain's Canal Zone Birth Prompts Queries About Whether That Rules Him Out 

By CARL HULSE
February 28, 2008

WASHINGTON - 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 Senator John McCain of Arizona, the issue is becoming more than a matter of parental daydreaming.

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.

Almost since those words were written in 1787 with scant explanation, their precise meaning has been the stuff of confusion, law school review articles, whisper campaigns and civics class debates over whether only those delivered on American soil can be truly natural born. To date, no American to take the presidential oath has had an official birthplace outside the 50 states.

"There are powerful arguments that Senator McCain or anyone else in this position is constitutionally qualified, but there is certainly no precedent," said Sarah H. Duggin, an associate professor of law at Catholic University who has studied the issue extensively. "It is not a slam-dunk situation."

Mr. McCain was born on a military installation in the Canal Zone, where his mother and father, a Navy officer, were stationed. His campaign advisers say they are comfortable that Mr. McCain meets the requirement and note that the question was researched for his first presidential bid in 1999 and reviewed again this time around.

But given mounting interest, the campaign recently asked Theodore B. Olson, a former solicitor general now advising Mr. McCain, to prepare a detailed legal analysis. "I don't have much doubt about it," said Mr. Olson, who added, though, that he still needed to finish his research.

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and one of Mr. McCain's closest allies, said it would be incomprehensible to him if the son of a military member born in a military station could not run for president.

"He was posted there on orders from the United States government," Mr. Graham said of Mr. McCain's father. "If that becomes a problem, we need to tell every military family that your kid can't be president if they take an overseas assignment."

The phrase "natural born" was in early drafts of the Constitution. Scholars say notes of the Constitutional Convention give away little of the intent of the framers. Its origin may be traced to a letter from John Jay to George Washington, with Jay suggesting that to prevent foreigners from becoming commander in chief, the Constitution needed to "declare expressly" that only a natural-born citizen could be president.

Ms. Duggin and others who have explored the arcane subject in depth say legal argument and basic fairness may indeed be on the side of Mr. McCain, a longtime member of Congress from Arizona. But multiple experts and scholarly reviews say the issue has never been definitively resolved by either Congress or the Supreme Court.

Ms. Duggin favors a constitutional amendment to settle the matter. Others have called on Congress to guarantee that Americans born outside the national boundaries can legitimately see themselves as potential contenders for the Oval Office.

"They ought to have the same rights," said Don Nickles, a former Republican senator from Oklahoma who in 2004 introduced legislation that would have established that children born abroad to American citizens could harbor presidential ambitions without a legal cloud over their hopes. "There is some ambiguity because there has never been a court case on what 'natural-born citizen' means."

Mr. McCain's situation is different from those of the current governors of California and Michigan, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jennifer M. Granholm, who were born in other countries and were first citizens of those nations, rendering them naturalized Americans ineligible under current interpretations. The conflict that could conceivably ensnare Mr. McCain goes more to the interpretation of "natural born" when weighed against intent and decades of immigration law.

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. The 21st president, Chester A. Arthur, whose birthplace is Vermont, was rumored to have actually been born in Canada, prompting some to question his eligibility.

Quickly recognizing confusion over the evolving nature of citizenship, the First Congress in 1790 passed a measure that did define children of citizens "born beyond the sea, or out of the limits of the United States to be natural born." But that law is still seen as potentially unconstitutional and was overtaken by subsequent legislation that omitted the "natural-born" phrase.

Mr. McCain's citizenship was established by statutes covering the offspring of Americans abroad and laws specific to the Canal Zone as Congress realized that Americans would be living and working in the area for extended periods. But whether he qualifies as natural-born has been a topic of Internet buzz for months, with some declaring him ineligible while others assert that he meets all the basic constitutional qualifications - a natural-born citizen at least 35 years of age with 14 years of residence.

"I don't think he has any problem whatsoever," said Mr. Nickles, a McCain supporter. "But I wouldn't be a bit surprised if somebody is going to try to make an issue out of it. If it goes to court, I think he will win."

Lawyers who have examined the topic say there is not just confusion about the provision itself, but uncertainty about who would have the legal standing to challenge a candidate on such grounds, what form a challenge could take and whether it would have to wait until after the election or could be made at any time.

In a paper written 20 years ago for the Yale Law Journal on the natural-born enigma, Jill Pryor, now a lawyer in Atlanta, said that any legal challenge to a presidential candidate born outside national boundaries would be "unpredictable and unsatisfactory."

"If I were on the Supreme Court, I would decide for John McCain," Ms. Pryor said in a recent interview. "But it is certainly not a frivolous issue."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/us/po ... ref=slogin


----------



## JBB (Feb 9, 2005)

I would think if you spend 5 years in a North Veitnam prison camp while fighting for your country this should not even be an issue.


----------



## R y a n (Apr 4, 2005)

JBB said:


> I would think if you spend 5 years in a North Veitnam prison camp while fighting for your country this should not even be an issue.


Doesn't matter. Did you read the article?

It's in the constitution.

This could indeed go straight to the Supreme Court for a fast decision....


----------



## cwoparson (Aug 23, 2007)

Every child born on or at a military installation no matter what country they are stationed in is a natural born American citizen. That would be thousands if not tens of thousands each year. Its nothing more than a red herring meant to muddy the water. Sounds pretty desperate to me.


----------



## fishless (Aug 2, 2005)

So RYAN, are you saying that if are service men and women have a child while serving our country oversees that there child is inelidgeable to be president of the US. McCain's father was in the navy serving our country when he was born. Good grief what will the liberal media fish up next?


----------



## R y a n (Apr 4, 2005)

fishless said:


> So RYAN, are you saying that if are service men and women have a child while serving our country oversees that there child is inelidgeable to be president of the US. McCain's father was in the navy serving our country when he was born. Good grief what will the liberal media fish up next?


I'm not saying anything. This was an article printed by the NYT.

I just find it an interesting legal technicality. I could care less if this came out about McCain, Clinton, Obama, Bart Simpson.

The point is, that SCOTUS has never clarified what the Constitution meant when they said, a "natural born" citizen.

As was stated:



> "There are powerful arguments that Senator McCain or anyone else in this position is constitutionally qualified, but there is certainly no precedent," said Sarah H. Duggin, an associate professor of law at Catholic University who has studied the issue extensively. "It is not a slam-dunk situation."


So in response to your question, we don't know.

The way the current law could be interpreted, without precedent by SCOTUS, a miltary baby born outside of US territory could indeed be excluded from eligibility.


----------



## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

Interesting Ryan. I completely understood that you were not taking a stand pro or con on the issue.

I can't stand McCain, but I wouldn't take the low road and exclude someone born of an active military father or mother.


----------



## R y a n (Apr 4, 2005)

Plainsman said:


> Interesting Ryan. I completely understood that you were not taking a stand pro or con on the issue.
> 
> I can't stand McCain, but I wouldn't take the low road and exclude someone born of an active military father or mother.


Agreed.

Regardless of whether one considers a military base in a foreign country US soil (which it is), would this matter anyway? Assuming either one, if not both, of his parents was a US citizen, he would autmoatically become a "natural-born citizen" at birth, by dint of his lineage. No?

For example, I thought that whole controversy with Arnold Schwarzeneggar was the fact that he is a naturalized US citizen, not that he was born in a foreign country.

But I could be wrong?


----------



## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

I don't think Arnold Schwarzeneggar is a U. S. citizen. Isn't he Austrian? I remember some people a couple years back lamenting that he could never run for president.


----------



## huntin1 (Nov 14, 2003)

Military bases and embassies are US soil and any children born to US citizens stationed at them are natural born citizens.

One must remember where this article came from. The NYT is way to the left. Are they not?

huntin1


----------



## R y a n (Apr 4, 2005)

Plainsman said:


> I don't think Arnold Schwarzeneggar is a U. S. citizen. Isn't he Austrian? I don't think he possesses dual citizenship.


Schwarzenegger is a dual Austria/United States citizen.[48] He holds Austrian citizenship through having been born there and holds U.S. citizenship since becoming naturalized in 1983.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Schwarzenegger


----------



## R y a n (Apr 4, 2005)

huntin1 said:


> Military bases and embassies are US soil and any children born to US citizens stationed at them are natural born citizens.
> 
> One must remember where this article came from. The NYT is way to the left. Are they not?
> 
> huntin1


Yes the NYT is definitely on the ultra left.... which in and of itself is pause for concern.

However if you are born on a military base or embassy, you are American, but not "natural born"

That is the wording that is cause for discussion.


----------



## cwoparson (Aug 23, 2007)

> However if you are born on a military base or embassy, you are American, but not "natural born"


No one is natural born if born within the boarders of the United States either. Those two words "natural born" were remove in 1868 when the fourteenth amendment was put into effect, over riding Article II. They no longer exist by law in the definition of a American citizen.

Current US statutes define certain individuals born overseas such as those in US embassies, US military installations, and American territories as "citizens at birth. McCain is not the first person to seek the presidency as someone not actually born on American soil. Barry Goldwater was born in Arizona while it was still a territory. George Romney who ran in 1968, was born in Mexico to U.S. parents.

Although the U.S. Supreme Court has never specifically addressed the meaning of "natural born citizen, SCOTUS has heard and ruled on less than ten cases related to citizenship which has helped form the criteria we use today.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural-born_citizen


----------



## huntin1 (Nov 14, 2003)

Ryan said:


> However if you are born on a military base or embassy, you are American, but not "natural born"


And I still say that since military bases and embassies are considered US soil regardless of where they are located, any person born at such a location to American Citizens hold ALL rights and priviliges as if they were born right here at home. That includes being a "natural born" citizen for the purpose of running for President.

Perhaps specific language does not appear in the constitution because the framers did not fathom that the question would arise given that the definition of US military bases and embassies do specifically state that they are considered US soil.

Of course I don't think that they fathomed the extreme idiocy of the far left liberal mind either. :roll:

In any event, I do think that SCOTUS should render specific language that deals with the definition of being "natural born" as it pertains to running for the office of President.

huntin1


----------



## Skip OK (Jul 16, 2006)

If you want to be technical about it, none of the following presidents were born in the US:

George Washington
John Adams
Thomas Jefferson
James Madison 
James Monroe
John Quincy Adams
Andrew Jackson

There may be more as well but I'm pretty sure all of these men were born in British Colonies prior to the formation of the United States.

I'm pretty sure they all qualified to be President. AND that the people qualifying them were the best possible to know what the framers meant since by and large they WERE the framers.


----------



## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

Skip OK said:


> If you want to be technical about it, none of the following presidents were born in the US:
> 
> George Washington
> John Adams
> ...


OK skip you got us,  but that is a bit of a different situation isn't it? I think the law about being a citizen of the United States came after we were the United States for a while.


----------



## cwoparson (Aug 23, 2007)

> I think the law about being a citizen of the United States came after we were the United States for a while.


Nope, Article II ratified in 1789 contained the words natural born citizen. But if you read the the article itself, anyone that has been a resident for 14 years, is older than 35 years of age, and is a citizen may be elected to the Presidents office. The paragraph reads as follows:

"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."

I had thought this section had been amended later but that is not the case.

What I'm not sure about is if the framers were saying with "or a Citizen of the United States" was just their intention to simply cover everyone living and breathing in the United States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, and was not meant for future generations. If that was not their intention then Washington would of had to remain in office for 35 years for someone to be born and grow up to take his place.


----------



## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

September 17, 1787 to 1789 is a while right? I understand your point about Washington being in office for 35 years. It's a good thing they put that part


> or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution,


 because I doubt there would have been many qualified two year olds, even if they temporarily exempted the age requirement.


----------

