Arizona Senate Bill 1308 passed out of committee yesterday by an 8-5 vote. This bill is a cleverly disguised attempt to protect President Obama from eligibility scrutiny. It does this by declaring persons born with dual citizenship as natural born citizens. But it does this in a very sneaky manner.
That’s right. Arizona has now passed out of committee a bill which states that persons born with dual citizenship are natural born citizens of the United States. This same bill is being considered by all states party to the compact.
So infamous congratulations to the 8 votes in Arizona who passed this unconstitutional bill to the full Senate floor. They’ve just declared those born as dual citizens eligible to be Commander In Chief of the US Armed Forces.
The Arizona Republic completely failed to mention this incredible turn of events in their report:
“Late Tuesday, the committee advanced two of the bills, becoming the first state legislative committee in the nation to pass legislation intended to challenge the practice of granting citizenship to children born in the U.S. to illegal immigrants.
Committee members voted 8-5 to approve a controversial package of bills, which would challenge the 14th Amendment interpretation about citizenship.”
ARTICLE 6. INTERSTATE BIRTH CERTIFICATE COMPACT…
ARTICLE II
Definition
As used in this compact, “subject to the jurisdiction of the United States” has the meaning that it bears in section 1 of the fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution, namely that the person is a child of at least one parent who owes no allegiance to any foreign sovereignty, or a child without citizenship or nationality in any foreign country.
ARTICLE III
Terms
…A person who is born subject to the jurisdiction of the United States is a natural born United States citizen.
Article III declares that… “A person who is born subject to the jurisdiction of the United States is a natural born United States citizen.”
Sneaky bastards all around. When the relevant section of Article II is read in conjunction with the relevant section of Article III, you have a complete declaration that a person born of one citizen parent is a “natural born United States citizen”.
According to that definition, a person born with dual citizenship is also a “natural born United States citizen”.
ANCHOR BABIES OUT… OBAMA IN.
Anchor babies will not be eligible for US citizenship according to this bill, but Obama will be eligible to be POTUS. Looks like a deal was struck to protect Obama by attacking the citizenship of children born on US soil to illegal immigrant parents.
Apparently, the US citizenship of anchor babies is being sacrificed to protect Obama from competing eligibility legislation – such as Arizona HB 2544 – which does, in fact, require Presidential candidates to prove they have never owed allegiance to a foreign nation.
14th AMENDMENT – MARBURY v. MADISON – JOHN BINGHAM
SB 1308 is unconstitutional because it would render the natural born citizen clause (from Article 2 Section 1) superfluous. That is not allowed according to the famous SCOTUS decision, Marbury v. Madison, wherein Chief Justice Marshal stated:
‘It cannot be presumed that any clause in the constitution is intended to be without effect; and therefore such construction is inadmissible, unless the words require it.’
If the 14th Amendment defined “natural born citizen” for the purposes of POTUS eligibility, then the nbc clause in Article 2 Section 1 would be rendered meaningless.
If the framers of the 14th Amendment had sought to declare all 14th Amendment citizens to be “natural born citizens” then that’s exactly what the 14th Amendment would say.
But it doesn’t.
The 14th Amendment – by its very own text – defines who are “citizens”, but it does not define who is a “natural born citizen”. Elsewhere in the Constitution, the word “citizen” was used to define those who are eligible to be Representatives and Senators. But the word “citizen” was not used to define those eligible to be POTUS. For that the framers demanded one be a “natural born citizen”.
The 14th Amendment does not use the words “natural born”. The framers could have included those words in the 14th Amendment, but they chose not to.
The compact between the states referenced in Arizona SB 1308 attempts to rewrite the 14th Amendment by adding the words “natural born” to it.
Such may only be accomplished by the Constitutional amendment process. This compact does not meet that standard.
In conclusion, I leave you with the words of John Bingham, one of the people who drafted the 14th Amendment:
“…every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural-born citizen.”
Parents. Plural. Not one parent. Two. Two parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty. Mr. Bingham would know more about the intent of the drafters of the 14th Amendment than anyone alive today… seeing as how Mr. Bingham wrote the 14th Amendment.
But hey, who cares about facts? Who cares about the text of the 14th Amendment? This is America. The Constitution is what people say it is, not what it actually says for itself. Welcome to the living Constitution… and the dying of the USA.
Leo Donofrio, Esq.