Conservative Kansas Congressman: Obama ‘Will Be On The Ballot’

[DonViejo]

Source: TPM

One of Kansas’s most conservative members of Congress told TPM Friday that the talk about barring President Obama from Kansas ballots will end up being just that.

“He’ll be on the ballot in Kansas,” Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R) told TPM in the halls of the Values Voter Summit in Washington.

Three top Republican elected officials in Kansas, including “informal” Mitt Romney adviser Kris Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state, are considering challenging Obama’s eligibility to appear on Kansas ballots this fall based on concerns over his citizenship. Kobach would not directly say whether he believes Obama’s birth certificate is real in an email to TPM Thursday night.

Huelskamp suggested the birther controversy in Kansas will end with Obama on the ballot in the state where his mother was raised.

Read more: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/09/kansas_rep_obama_will_be_on_the_ballot.php?ref=fpa

[geardaddy]

1. If they succeeded in keeping him off the ballot

They should be locked up.

[jsr]

2. The consequences against Kansas will be enormous and severe

if Obama is kept off the ballot.

[mac56]

4. jsr, I suspect you're right

but what would those consequences be? Serious question.

[AlinPA]

20. What consequences would there be in Kansas? It's a lost state for us.

[central scrutinizer]

24. No

That is not the way Democrats work. They would not punish a whole state because of a few narcissistic idiots.

[jberryhill]

3. Conservative Kansas Congressman is not a state official

[msanthrope]

6. Yes. He isn't on the Board that will determine the eligibility. nt

[jberryhill]

9. What state office does he hold?

He is a United States Congressman:

http://huelskamp.house.gov/

You are saying that he also holds some Kansas state office at the same time?

[msanthrope]

12. Didn't mean to imply that. Just noting he has no seat on the Board that will determine. nt

[jberryhill]

25. What's great is...

Any Republicans who distance themselves from this sort of thing are seized upon as traitors or co-conspirators.

[msanthrope]

26. Indeed, and Kris Kobach will only be the latest one to betray them. nt

[sakabatou]

5. We'll see in Nov.

[maxsolomon]

7. His Mother is an American Citizen

it doesn't matter where he was born, he's an American Citizen.

this shit needs to stop, and Obama's re-election ought to stop it. suck it, haters.

[mac56]

8. A reader on HuffPo posted this:

This will be extremely interesting, because indeed if this passes then by rule of thumb Mitt Romney himself will have to be taken off the ballot as well. His mother is a natural born citizen, but his father George W. Romney is not. George was born in Chihuahua, Mexico which is not a U.S. Territory therefore Mitt Romney himself would be ineligible by the same means Montgomery is claiming. I guess Kansas won't have anyone to vote for come November 6, 2012.

[geardaddy]

10. See, I thought it had nothing to do with the parents

That the candidate him/herself had to be born in the U.S. or a U.S. territory.

So, for example, if both of my parents were born outside the U.S. but I was born on U.S. soil, I should be able to be president.

[justiceischeap]

13. ^ You are correct.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural-born-citizen_clause

The Constitution does not define the phrase natural-born citizen, and various opinions have been offered over time regarding its precise meaning. A 2011 Congressional Research Service report stated

The weight of legal and historical authority indicates that the term "natural born" citizen would mean a person who is entitled to U.S. citizenship "by birth" or "at birth", either by being born "in" the United States and under its jurisdiction, even those born to alien parents; by being born abroad to U.S. citizen-parents; or by being born in other situations meeting legal requirements for U.S. citizenship "at birth". Such term, however, would not include a person who was not a U.S. citizen by birth or at birth, and who was thus born an "alien" required to go through the legal process of "naturalization" to become a U.S. citizen.[1]

The natural-born-citizen clause has been mentioned in passing in several decisions of the United States Supreme Court and lower courts dealing with the question of eligibility for citizenship by birth, but the Supreme Court has never directly addressed the question of a specific presidential or vice-presidential candidate's eligibility as a natural-born citizen.

[mikeytherat]

14. It doesn't have to do with both parents. Except to the idiot in Kansas who filed this.

The fact that Obama's mother was a citizen doesn't matter. The fact that Obama was born in Hawaii two years AFTER it became a U.S. state doesn't matter. The fact that Romney's dad was born in Mexico, thus disqualifying Mittens with the same "logic," doesn't matter. To the idiot in Kansas who filed this.

You are correct. If at least one parent is a U.S. citizen, or you are born on U.S. soil, you meet the citizenship requirement for the U.S. presidency.

Except, of course, to the idiot in Kansas who filed this.

mikey_the_rat

[happyslug]

19. This was resolved in the 1920s

In the 1920s a GOP controlled House had to decide to seat a woman elected to the House of Representative who had moved into the US and her district from Britain three years before. She had taken the procedures to become a US Citizen, but the US Constitution said a member of Congress MUST be a US Citizen for at least five years before they can serve in Congress. She had NOT lived in the US five years since she took the Citizenship test.

Worse for the GOP Controlled House, she represented a strong Democratic District which the GOP had no hope of taking. Thus to seat her or not, still meant a Democrat would take her seat.

The legal issue was simple, was she a Citizen? Under English Common Law rules as to Citizenship, a woman lost her citizenship upon marriage to a citizen of another country. Given she had been born in the US (To a three time Democratic Presidential Candidate) and only "lost" her citizenship upon her marriage to an Englishman this rule came into play.

The GOP controlled house saw nothing but problems, if they ruled she was NOT a Naturally Born Citizen, it would be a factor in the upcoming election (How can a daughter of a US Citizen NOT be a Citizen, especially if she was the daughter of a Presidential Candidate)? If the GOP Controlled Congress ruled she was a Natural Born Citizen she would sit as a Democrat. The GOP controlled house decided the later was preferable and ruled that a woman did NOT lose her Citizenship upon Marriage. The House and Senate then wrote the present law on who is and who is not a "Natural Born Citizen" and that means anyone born in the US OR anyone born to a Natural Born Citizen even if born overseas. No one loses their citizenship upon marriage. That is the law today and has been since the 1920s. It is the law governing Obama.

[geardaddy]

23. Cool. Thanks for the info!

[happyslug]

27. Thank Ruth Bryan Owen . She was the Congress person in question

Here are some prior threads on this subject: This is old subject.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=4594188&mesg_id=4594284

More on Birthright citizenship
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthright_citizenship_in_the_United_States_of_America

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1401

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=CASE&court=US&vol=169&page=649

http://sync.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=127784

More on Ruth Bryan Owens the woman in question:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Bryan_Owen

She won in 1929 was reelected in 1930. She lost the primary election in 1932 she supported Prohibition but her opponent was for repeal. When repeal came up for a vote she still was in office but decided to vote the way the voters in her district wanted she voted for repeal.

i have written about her father before. William Jennings Bryan is now known for the Scopes Money trial (and then for the wrong reasons) but his real clam to fame is he oversaw the conversion of the Democratic Party form a GOP "me to" party (Which it had became post Civil War) to the progressive party of the 1920s to the 1960s. Best quote about this was Herbert Hoover's famous comment about the New Deal "Bryanism without Bryan". The New Deal 1933. Bryan died in 1925.

[kestrel91316]

11. ^^^ 100% correct. Rmoney would have to be excluded, too.

[Blue_Tires]

16. That's why, like I said...

The national GOP will call the governor, and the governor will call the panel and the big picture will get explained to them...

[AlinPA]

21. Nope, not in Kansas. It's OK if you are a republican.

[Strelnikov_]

15. Damn, thats too bad

I was hoping for a tea-bag fueled self-immolation.

[lexx21]

18. +1

Think about something though..... If they were not already scared shitless about Obama winning, why would they even suggest his removal from the ballot?

[struggle4progress]

17. Kansas Republicans: We need to see Obama's birth certificate

(CBS News) Kansas' Republican Secretary of State and two other Republican officials have determined that they do not have enough evidence to determine whether President Obama can appear on the Kansas ballot, the Topeka Capital-Journal reported.

Secretary of State Kris Kobach, Attorney General Derek Schmidt and Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer said they need to review a copy of the president's birth certificate and other documents before they can respond to a complaint alleging that Mr. Obama is not a "natural born citizen." ...

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57513244-503544/kansas-republicans-we-need-to-see-obamas-birth-certificate/

[frylock]

22. in other news, this taint stain is concerned about PPH's Forced Abortion Death Squads..

roaming the country and forcing abortions on every woman they can, even if they're not pregnant.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/125196528