General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThird tier law professor John Eastman had an op-ed in Newsweek
Last edited Fri Aug 14, 2020, 02:33 PM - Edit history (1)
questioning Kamala Harris' eligibility.
https://www.newsweek.com/some-questions-kamala-harris-about-eligibility-opinion-1524483
RainCaster
(10,869 posts)SheltieLover
(57,073 posts)struggle4progress
(118,280 posts)Her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, was a breast cancer scientist who had emigrated from Tamil Nadu, India, in 1960 to pursue a doctorate in endocrinology at UC Berkeley. Her father, Donald J. Harris, is a Stanford University emeritus professor of economics, who emigrated from British Jamaica in 1961 for graduate study in economics at UC Berkeley" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamala_Harris
"Shyamala conducted research in UC Berkeley's Department of Zoology and Cancer Research Lab. She worked as a breast cancer researcher at University of Illinois and University of Wisconsin. She worked for 16 years at Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research and McGill University Faculty of Medicine. Gopalan served as a peer reviewer for the National Institutes of Health and as a site visit team member for the Federal Advisory Committee. She also served on the President's Special Commission on Breast Cancer. She mentored dozens of students in her lab. For her last decade of research, Gopalan worked in the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shyamala_Gopalan
"Donald J. Harris ... was born in Waldorf, Maryland, as the son of Beryl Finnegan and Oscar Joseph Harris.He grew up in the Orange Hill area of St. Ann's Parish, near Brown's Town ... Harris received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of London in 1960. In 1963 he came to the United States to earn a PhD from University of California, Berkeley which he completed in 1966 ... Harris was an assistant professor at the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign from 1966 to 1967 and at Northwestern University from 1967 to 1968. He moved to the University of WisconsinMadison as an associate professor in 1968. In 1972, he joined the faculty of Stanford University as a professor of economics." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_J._Harris
Justice
(7,185 posts)Someone fiddled with Wiki page to change birth place to Maryland in second reference. Then I was changed back to Jamaica. Whats up?
struggle4progress
(118,280 posts)Justice
(7,185 posts)It said Maryland and then Jamaica. Obviously if it was MD would moot entire Eastman piece.
Someone trying to make trouble.
Newsweek screwed up publishing Eastmans piece because he is conflicted - lost GOP primary AG race when Harris won
struggle4progress
(118,280 posts)Justice
(7,185 posts)struggle4progress
(118,280 posts)muriel_volestrangler
(101,310 posts)https://twitter.com/josh_hammer
counsel for First Liberty Institute, speaker Young America's Foundation and Federalist Society, alumnus Claremont Institute (where the op-ed author is a senior fellow) and American Compass.
That's why Hammer leapt in with this, denying this is birtherism - https://www.newsweek.com/editors-note-eastmans-newsweek-column-has-nothing-do-racist-birtherism-1524800 . He knew exactly what he was doing when he commissioned this.
Crunchy Frog
(26,579 posts)davekriss
(4,616 posts)It says he emigrated from near Browns Town, Jamaica. Its says he was born in Maryland. There is a minor gap there, however, between when he was born in Maryland to when/how he ended up in Jamaica. I did not open the article, maybe the answer is in there.
Justice
(7,185 posts)davekriss
(4,616 posts)The current wiki differs what the previous poster pasted earlier.
Justice
(7,185 posts)Response twice because of changes.
brush
(53,771 posts)She was born in Oakland for God's sake. No one is going to pay any attention to some obscure, 19th century non-decision by SCOTUS way back when.
RT Atlanta
(2,517 posts)for a variety of reasons.
I'm surprised you're slamming law schools with such a broad brush and not focusing on the author and - perhaps - his own school admin and that school's knowledge of his perspective.
Bush Torture memo author John Yoo is a Yale law grad as a counter point to your position above.
Justice
(7,185 posts)AG primary candidate. Kamela Harris won AG race. Thats the story.
Claustrum
(4,845 posts)Though, third and fourth tier law schools are problematic too. Just look at their graduation stats, a lot of them has less than 10-20% chance of actually becoming a lawyer and still charge 200+k for the law degree.
Justice
(7,185 posts)Lots of sucky, snobby ones from 1st and 2nd tier schools.
RT Atlanta
(2,517 posts)n/t
dalton99a
(81,455 posts)madinmaryland
(64,931 posts)Happy Hoosier
(7,295 posts)The problem for him is that regardless of what he thinks the correct interpretation of that phrase is, she WAS in fact granted citizenship at birth, and she clearly owes no allegiance to either Jamaica or India, which was the whole point of the natural-born citizenship requirements.
But he did not graduate from a "third tier" school. He graduated from the University of Chicago Law School.
But he's right that this is all irrelevant legalistic bullshit.
Keep in mind that he LOST the Republican primary for California AG in the year Kamala Harris WON the general election for that office, so no doubt some sour grapes involved.
crickets
(25,963 posts)struggle4progress
(118,280 posts)Mr. Justice GRAY ... delivered the opinion of the court ...
The question presented by the record is whether a child born in the United States, of parents of Chinese descent, who at the time of his birth are subjects of the emperor of China, but have a permanent domicile and residence in the United States, and are there carrying on business, and are not employed in any diplomatic or official capacity under the emperor of China, becomes at the time of his birth a citizen of the United States, by virtue of the first clause of the fourteenth amendment of the constitution: 'All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside' ...
The constitution of the United States, as originally adopted, uses the words 'citizen of the United States' and 'natural-born citizen of the United States' ... The fourteenth article of amendment, besides declaring that 'all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside,' also declares that 'no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws' ...
The constitution nowhere defines the meaning of these words ... In this, as in other respects, it must be interpreted in the light of the common law, the principles and history of which were familiarly known to the framers of the constitution ...
The fundamental principle of the common law with regard to English nationality was birth within the allegiancealso called 'ligealty,' 'obedience,' 'faith,' or 'power'of the king. The principle embraced all persons born within the king's allegiance, and subject to his protection. Such allegiance and protection were mutual, as expressed in the maxim, 'Protectio trahit subjectionem, et subjectio protectionem,' and were not restricted to natural-born subjects and naturalized subjects, or to those who had taken an oath of allegiance; but were predicable of aliens in amity, so long as they were within the kingdom. Children, born in England, of such aliens, were therefore natural-born subjects. But the children, born within the realm, of foreign ambassadors, or the children of alien enemies, born during and within their hostile occupation of part of the king's dominions, were not natural-born subjects, because not born within the allegiance, the obedience, or the power, or, as would be said at this day, within the jurisdiction, of the king ...
It thus clearly appears that by the law of England for the last three centuries, beginning before the settlement of this country, and continuing to the present day, aliens, while residing in the dominions possessed by the crown of England, were within the allegiance, the obedience, the faith or loyalty, the protection, the power, and the jurisdiction of the English sovereign; and therefore every child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject, unless the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a foreign state, or of an alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the child was born.
... The same rule was in force in all the English colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the constitution as originally established ...
That all children, born within the dominion of the United States, of foreign parents holding no diplomatic office, became citizens at the time of their birth, does not appear to have been contested or doubted until more than 50 years after the adoption of the constitution ...
There is, therefore, little ground for the theory that at the time of the adoption of the fourteenth amendment of the constitution of the United States there was any settled and definite rule of international law generally recognized by civilized nations, inconsistent with the ancient rule of citizenship by birth within the dominion ...
The real object of the fourteenth amendment of the constitution, in qualifying the words 'all persons born in the United States' by the addition 'and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,' would appear to have been to exclude, by the fewest and fittest words (besides children of members of the Indian tribes, standing in a peculiar relation to the national government, unknown to the common law), the two classes of cases,children born of alien enemies in hostile occupation, and children of diplomatic representatives of a foreign state ...
The foregoing considerations and authorities irresistibly lead us to these conclusions: The fourteenth amendment affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory, in the allegiance and under the protection of the country, including all children here born of resident aliens, with the exceptions or qualifications (as old as the rule itself) of children of foreign sovereigns or their ministers, or born on foreign public ships, or of enemies within and during a hostile occupation of part of our territory, and with the single additional exception of children of members of the Indian tribes owing direct allegiance to their several tribes ...
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/169/649
Happy Hoosier
(7,295 posts)He twisted the "jurisdiction" definition well beyond what the opinion declares. Neither of Kamala's parents were either hostile aliens under occupation OR diplomatic representatives of a foreign sate.
Eastman is a liar.
Tommy_Carcetti
(43,181 posts)Not everyone has the opportunity to go to an Ivy League school, nor does having an Ivy League or top tier law degree necessarily make someone a good lawyer.
StarfishSaver
(18,486 posts)VMA131Marine
(4,138 posts)Of course, its Dr John Eastman in 2016 arguing why Ted Cruz is eligible to be POTUS:
The requirement in Article II that one be a natural-born citizen in order to be eligible for the presidency simply means that one be a citizen from birth, rather than subsequently becoming a citizen by later naturalization.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2016/01/ted-cruz-natural-born-citizenship-eligibility-president/amp/
struggle4progress
(118,280 posts)fishwax
(29,149 posts)Last edited Fri Aug 14, 2020, 01:36 AM - Edit history (1)
The issue with Cruz was that he wasn't born on American soil. But this was actually a non-issue because he was still a natural born citizen based on blood, which is what Eastman is arguing in the article from 2016.
The non-issue with Harris is that she was born in Oakland but to non-citizens. It's a non issue, because she was born on U.S. soil and her parents weren't invaders, or diplomats, or alien enemies. (Those are the exceptions to Jus Soli citizenship that the Supreme Court offered in U.S. vs. Wong Kim Ark.) But Eastman is trying to claim that in addition to those exceptions the court also excluded anyone whose parents weren't permanently living in the country. The problem is, the court didn't actually say that. WRT Harris, Eastman is wrong. But that won't stop the trump humpers from trumpeting the argument long and loud, I'm sure. There will be investigations into the residency status of both of her parents.
VMA131Marine
(4,138 posts)In the Cruz case, Eastman argues that anyone who is a citizen from birth is a natural born citizen. Both Cruz and Kamala Harris meet that test so the rest of his argument is entirely superfluous unless he wants to argue that Harris is not a citizen at all.
fishwax
(29,149 posts)He is, instead, arguing that Harris was not a citizen from birth unless her parents were permanent residents. It's not a good argument, but it isn't inconsistent with his line on cruz.
If it were a simple inconsistency or contradiction that would be one thing, but it's actually crazier than that: he's arguing she may not even be eligible to be a senator because she may not have had cotizenship from birth and may never have actually acquired it
VMA131Marine
(4,138 posts)fishwax
(29,149 posts)Though I certainly could have been more clear about it.
Your post said:
My post said: his argument is, in fact, that Harris may not be a citizen at all.
____________________
This is significant because it makes his argument rather more sinister than simple hypocrisy or self contradiction. It serves instead, to provide the nutjobs fodder for the same the sort of endless racist investigations into her parents that the birther conspiracy did for Obama.
His argument here assumes (as you state, and as he argued more explicitly in the Cruz article) that to be a citizen at birth makes you a natural born citizen.
However, he also claims that to be a citizen at birth by virtue of being born in the United States, one must have a parent who is either a citizen or a permanent resident.
NOTE: He offers no evidence to support this claim--certainly not from case law--and it stands in contradiction to pretty much every expert's reading (and the plain English reading) of the Wong Kim Ark case.
He continues: Since we don't know whether her parents were permanent residents (as opposed to having visitor status or student visas), then we don't know for sure if she was a citizen at birth. (Or, even, if she ever became a citizen).
If one buys his stupid claim, then it gives cause to endlessly investigate and build conspiracy theories around the status of her parents.
UTUSN
(70,684 posts)Archae
(46,322 posts)Right Wing Watch did an article on this asshole.
Seems he's a far-right hack.
https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/birtherism-2-0-right-wing-lawyer-john-eastman-questions-kamala-harris-eligibility-for-vice-presidency/
Progressive Law
(617 posts)I have regularly witnessed graduates of lower ranked law schools win cases against lawyers from higher ranked schools.
Progressive Law
(617 posts)How can you explain such a prestigous school producing such a questionable graduate? Will you be advocating for the shut down of that law school now?
Crunchy Frog
(26,579 posts)If you're not already, please boycott Newsweek.