I like what I have read about Tammy Duckworth lately. She certainly has the military creds to speak up against Trump's arbitrary pronouncements: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/tammy-duckworth-trump-transgender-military-ban_us_599f56bce4b06d67e336a850
She is experienced and seasoned in government, and we've surely had a front row view of what inexperience looks like. There is only one little problem: she was born in Thailand, though her father was an American serviceman who was serving in a diplomatic capacity at the time. She has been a citizen all her life. Does that count as "natural born"? Sure didn't seem to matter when it was McCain or Cruz running for president.
My eldest daughter was born in Germany while I was there winning the Cold War, and we were told she could be president. She became a Visitation sister, though. They might let her go out to be president, but I doubt she could get permission to campaign.
ReplyDeleteTom, that's cool that your daughter joined St. Jane Frances de Chantal's order.
DeleteThat would be my take also that someone who was a citizen by birth would be considered "natural born". The birther controversy was of course a ginned-up fake issue. And dog whistle racist.
McCain was born in the Canal Zone while his father was stationed there.
ReplyDeleteArticle II of the constitution states: "No person except a natural born citizen ... shall be eligible to the Office of President."
The framers of the constitution didn't define "natural born citizen." The phrase was added without any clarifying debate. The Supreme Court has never been asked to definitively settle the issue. And so we are left with a phrase just ambiguous enough to cause controversy.
The CZ was a sovereign US Territory while Thailand is not, but her father (US citizen) was posted there in a US governmental capacity.
The First Congress in 1790 established that children of U.S. citizens "born beyond the sea or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens."
I'm not a lawyer nor constitutional scholar, but it looks to me as if Duckworth qualifies if McCain did.
And Ted Cruz, born in Calgary. I didn't hear anybody say "boo" about that. I wonder how it would be decided by SCOTUS if it ever came to that.
DeleteNo matter what happened with SCOTUS, Trumplethinskintinyhanderialadulterer would pardon her!
ReplyDelete