BORN IN THE USA?
How to get eligibility ruling from Supremes
Lawyer outlines strategy to prompt court decision
Posted: May 16, 2009
12:30 am Eastern
By Bob Unruh
© 2009 WorldNetDaily
An Ohio State University associate professor who includes election law among his specialties says there is a logical legal strategy to convince the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on the issue of Barack Obama's eligibility to be president.
Daniel Tokaji, in an interview with WND, confirmed the thesis of a "First Impressions" column he'd written for the Michigan Law Review that a lawsuit in a state court probably would have the best chance at success in obtaining a decision.
WND has reported on dozens of legal challenges to Obama's occupancy in the Oval Office based on questions over his "natural born citizen" status. The Constitution, Article 2, Section 1, states, "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."
Some of the lawsuits question whether he actually was born in Hawaii, as he insists. If he was born out of the country, Obama's American mother, the suits contend, was too young at the time of his birth to confer American citizenship to her son under the law at the time.
Other challenges have focused on Obama's citizenship through his father, a Kenyan subject to the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom at the time of his birth, thus making him a dual citizen. The cases contend the framers of the Constitution excluded dual citizens from qualifying as natural born.
Complicating the situation is Obama's decision to spend sums estimated in the hundreds of thousands of dollars to avoid releasing a state birth certificate that would put to rest all of the questions.
At least half a dozen challenges have been presented to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the justices never have held a hearing on the issues themselves. Many other cases at the trial court level have been dismissed out of hand over "standing" and other issues.
Tokaji told WND the "most likely scenario" for obtaining a judicial determination on the question is if someone would "bring in a state court a challenge to a particular candidate's eligibility to appear on the ballot."
That could produce any number of results, but it could, importantly, create a conflict among state treatments of candidates, into which a Supreme Court likely would step.
"If a 'rogue' state court kicked Obama off the ballot, there's very little doubt in that circumstance that the Supreme Court would interject itself," he said.
His Michigan Law Review article elaborated on the various legal issues involved in challenging a presidential candidate's eligibility.
He concluded that the current crop of federal lawsuits probably cannot be dealt with in a federal court system for several reasons, including that of the plaintiffs' standing.
"Fortunately, there are alternative means to adjudicate this matter that are consistent with the U.S. Constitution," he wrote. "The most promising is a pre-election state-court lawsuit seeking to keep an allegedly unqualified candidate off the ballot. In the event that a renegade state court rejects a candidate who is, in fact, eligible or that two or more state courts reach conflicting conclusions on a candidate's eligibility, U.S. Supreme Court review should be available as a backstop."
How to get eligibility ruling from Supremes
