Arizona Legislature Approves Bill Requiring Presidential Candidates To Prove U.S. Citizenship

PHOENIX — The Arizona Legislature gave final approval late Thursday night to a proposal that would require President Barack Obama and other presidential candidates to prove they are U.S. citizens before their names can appear on the state's ballot.

Arizona would become the first state to require such proof if Gov. Jan Brewer signs the measure into law.

Republican Rep. Carl Seel of Phoenix, the author of the bill, said the bill wasn't about opposition to Obama. "This bill is about the integrity of our elections," Seel said.

Thirteen other states have considered similar proposals this year. The proposals were defeated in Arkansas, Connecticut, Maine and Montana.

The bill won final approval from the state House in a 40-16 vote.

So-called "birthers" contend since the last presidential election that Obama is ineligible to hold the nation's highest elected office because, they argue, he was actually born in Kenya, his father's homeland. The Constitution said a person must be a "natural-born citizen" to be eligible for the presidency.

Hawaii officials have repeatedly confirmed Obama's citizenship, and his Hawaiian birth certificates have been made public. Even though the courts have rebuffed lawsuits challenging Obama's eligibility, the issue hasn't gone away.

"It's a fringe issue in my view, and it's going to cause people to look again at Arizona and say what's all this craziness going on there," said Democratic Rep. Daniel Patterson of Tucson, an opponent of the bill.

The Arizona proposal would require political parties and presidential candidates to hand in affidavits stating a candidate's citizenship and age and to provide the candidate's birth certificate and a sworn statement saying where the candidate has lived for 14 years.

If candidates don't have a copy of their birth certificates, they could meet the requirement by providing baptismal or circumcision certificates, hospital birth records and other documents. An excerpt from the bill on what contenders would be required to provide:

1. A CERTIFIED COPY OF THE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE'S LONG FORM BIRTH CERTIFICATE THAT INCLUDES AT LEAST THE DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH, THE NAMES OF THE HOSPITAL AND THE ATTENDING PHYSICIAN, IF APPLICABLE, AND SIGNATURES OF ANY WITNESSES IN ATTENDANCE. IF THE CANDIDATE DOES NOT POSSESS A LONG FORM BIRTH CERTIFICATE AS REQUIRED BY THIS PARAGRAPH, THE CANDIDATE MAY ATTACH TWO OR MORE OF THE FOLLOWING DOCUMENTS THAT SHALL TAKE THE PLACE OF THE LONG FORM BIRTH CERTIFICATE IF THE CANDIDATE SWEARS TO THEIR AUTHENTICITY AND VALIDITY AND THE DOCUMENTS CONTAIN ENOUGH INFORMATION FOR THE SECRETARY OF STATE TO DETERMINE IF THE CANDIDATE MEETS THE REQUIREMENTS PRESCRIBED IN ARTICLE II, SECTION 1, CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES:

(a) EARLY BAPTISMAL OR CIRCUMCISION CERTIFICATE.
(b) HOSPITAL BIRTH RECORD.
(c) POSTPARTUM MEDICAL RECORD FOR THE MOTHER OR CHILD SIGNED BY THE DOCTOR OR MIDWIFE OR THE PERSON WHO DELIVERED OR EXAMINED THE CHILD AFTER BIRTH.
(d) ) EARLY CENSUS RECORD.

If it can't be determined whether candidates who provided documents in place of their birth certificates are eligible to appear on the ballot, the secretary of state would be able to set up a committee to help determine whether the requirements have been met.

The names of candidates can be kept off the ballot if the secretary of state doesn't believe the candidates met the citizenship requirement.

Comments

[Roadrun]

06:45 PM on 04/18/2011

With all the certificates, letters, pronouncements, announcements, proclamations and "I swear, I was there, I saw it" there is really only one issue, and it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9v4CFjrjBxc

[OhioPaul]

05:11 PM on 04/18/2011

http://www.usconstitution.net/consttop_citi.html
•Any one born outside the United States, if one parent is an alien and as long as the other parent is a citizen of the U.S. who lived in the U.S. for at least five years (with military and diplomatic service included in this time)
1. Arizona is clearly intent on keeping Obama off ballot.
2. It is duty of hospital and not parents to reports live birth! His birth appeared in two Honolulu newspapers days after his birth.
3. See reference at top. It is a legal code Title 8, section 1401. There are several clarifications listed. I include with bullit the relevant category. I myself (born in Ohio and resident for 22 succesive years in the USA) fathered in Switzerland a boy in 1980 and a girl in 1982, each time to the same Swiss mother. I hopped on a train to Bern the next day, each time with my passport, statements of the births, and respective baby photo, going directly to the American Embassy. I emerged each time with an American Passport, having recording each child as a "natural born" American citizen at birth. Obama has two things going for him: his mother and the place, the then already state of Hawaii. Under this clause, he could have even been born in Kenya, as how is Kenya different from Switzerland?

[wacaveman]

02:24 PM on 04/18/2011

Legal or not, the narrow minds of the Arizona legislature are assuming that only circumcised males will be running for president. Now that's what I call forward thinking. What next???

[CessnaDriverI72]

06:23 PM on 04/17/2011

Kapiolani. Mr. Obama know this.

[hoobit]

06:23 PM on 04/17/2011

(Here's the response I gave when you asked this question [since deleted], before)

I've no earthly idea what hospital Barack Obama was born in.

Then again, I've no earthly idea what the name of the hospital I was born in, was (or is), either. Nor do I know the names of the hospitals in which my children were born -- you'd think I'd know the names of those hospitals.­..being as how I went to --and was admitted to-- them to deliver, and all.

I do, however, know my birth name; the name of the city and territory in which I was born; the month, day, and year I was born; and my parent's names. I also know the birth names of both of my children; the city and state in which one was born and the city and country in which the other was born; the month, day, and year they were each born; and my name and their father's name.

And for the record, I've no idea who my Mom's doc was when I was born...OR the name of the doc who delivered my secondborn (The OB/GYN I was seeing was part of a group and out of town when second decided to arrive -- one of his partners had the honor.) The only reason I know the name of my firstborn's doc is I wrote it in his Baby Book. (Secondbo­rn's Baby Book = mainly blank spaces and empty pages.)

Point of your question, being?

[Dreaknyean]

01:33 PM on 04/17/2011

I'm pretty sure this is illegal. State governments don't get to dictate federal policy.

[CessnaDriverI72]

09:43 PM on 04/17/2011

Check J. Turley's website, he lists five points of unconstitutionality.

If the teabirfers can't accept absolute proof, they will never accept absolute proof.

[James McGill]

03:44 AM on 04/18/2011

The legislature thought they were being very clever by limiting the scope to only Primary elections for national parties. The biggest problem is that primary elections are for Delegates to a Convention, not for Presidential candidates. The wording of the bill is terrible because it fails to even address genuine subject matter. The person named on the ballot isn't a candidate for President until *after* the primary election, when the party nominates him.

[gimpysk]

10:06 AM on 04/18/2011

Not only that, but even in the general election, citizens don't vote for a presidential candidate. They vote for electors who are legally free to vote for their own choice of candidate.

[NotEve]

01:23 PM on 04/17/2011

Good thing for McCain they didn't pass this before 2008, he would've had a hard time getting on the ballot of his own state.

[Don Friedman]

11:40 AM on 04/17/2011

This isn't about the full faith and credit clause, or the privacy of medical records. Clearly, it's an attempt to prevent Obama from getting on the ballot in Arizona.

As I read it, the proposed legislation seems unconstitutional. It allows a State official--in this case the Arizona Secretary of State--to make a final determination as to whether there is sufficient evidence of a candidate's compliance with the Constitutional requirements. In addition, it requires a copy of the so-called "long-form" birth certificate, which, to my knowledge, is not a document that any individual has access to in any state. What one gets from the state of one's birth is a short document (a "Birth Certificate" or "Certificate of Live Birth"), which is not a copy of the long-form. Therefore, the bill requires production of a document that no candidate can actually produce without some special intervention of the state of their birth. If this document can't be produced, the Secretary of State has discretion to decide what else is adequate, and the fact is that most people won't have any other documentation.

Whether a candidate satisfies the Constitutional requirements is ultimately not for the individual state governments to decide; because it is a question of the U.S. Constitution, it requires either a Federal law spelling out the requirements and/or a Federal court decision.

[CessnaDriverI72]

08:06 PM on 04/17/2011

There are several ways that Presidential candidates are vetted:

The public during the campaign.

The press during the campaign.

The government during the campaign so that they can receive security briefings when they become major party candidates.

If all else fails, a challenge to a potential President-Elect's eligibility can and should be made at the Electoral College. (the process was attempted during the 2001 EC when several Congressmen challenged Florida's Electoral Votes, but no Senator had the guts to join in ).

No teabirfers came forward to challenge Mr. Obama at the EC. Not even a murmer.

[James McGill]

02:27 AM on 04/18/2011

"Long Form" isn't defined. There's no objective test that can be applied to determine if a given certificate is a "Long Form" or not, so the clause is meaningless.

[KaAp]

11:23 AM on 04/17/2011

Is this to avert attention away from more public buildings sold and rented back to the state again? Was she ticked off at how little applause she received in Tuscon at the service for those shot? Or, is she just being the total brain-dead puppet for her fascist masters? She is an embarrassment to the state of Arizona ... nah ... she is an embarrassment to humanity. Maybe she is having more delusions like the time she went out into the Sonora to do the quick-step with dancing headless torsos on the desert ...

[escapepa]

01:37 AM on 04/17/2011

Where to begin. First, medical records are protected by HIPAA. Secondly, have these people never heard of this.....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_Faith_and_Credit_Clause. This will not hold up in court on many levels. Another waste of taxpayer money and another embarrassment to us sane people here in AZ. Ugh, somebody get me out of here.

[Tom Iarossi]

09:59 PM on 04/16/2011

Let's let them run with the birther nonsense until the election. It can be used to demonstrate their severe cognitive and emotional limitations and consequent disqualification from public office. Arguing with them is like arguing with a stone. BO could mail them each a copy of whatever they want and they would find another reason to doubt it, especially since there is one thing he can't change about himself.

[James McGill]

02:57 AM on 04/18/2011

I can't wait to hear them wail and moan when President Obama quietly appears on the primary ballot. (There is nothing in the Bill that requires the teabaggers to be notified when the SoS accepts a candidate...)

[CessnaDriverI72]

04:17 PM on 04/16/2011

I don't usually post links, but here's a little treat for the teabirfers who claim they are not r@cists:

http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/2011/04/racist_orange_county_republica.php

[CessnaDriverI72]

03:36 PM on 04/16/2011

Let me address all your points in toto:

They are all wrong.

Have a good day.

[hoobit]

03:47 PM on 04/16/2011

As I wrote earlier:
So [Stanley Ann Dunham] meets a man from Kenya -- a black man -- is impregnate­d by him, and marries him (against wishes of both sets of parents) at 18. What better way to show how exotic, how independen­t, how liberal she is, than to travel to her husband's Kenya to birth that baby?

And she does.

All she has to do, then, is go to the US Embassy and/or Consulate in Kenya, report the birth, and get a passport for her wee bairn so she can return to Hawai'i...­she wants, after all, her child to be a US citizen just like she is. The Dept of State issues a passport with child's birthplace listed as (Someplace­), Kenya.

When they get to Hawai'i, she takes her son's documentat­ion to the State Registrar to register his Kenyan birth.

...but she has second thoughts: "Please write he was born in Honolulu," she says. "Sure," they say, "the law requires we write the *actual* place of birth on the certificat­e, but for you, Stanley Ann Obama..."

````````
So, Deucejack, what is this obsession of yours that the "long form" birth certificate --and ONLY the long form birth certificate-- is proof of POTUSs US citizenship?

The various States have declared what *they* each consider PROOF of birth in *their* State and all other 49 States accept that; I'm sorry, dear, but *you* cannot pick and choose what *you* deem as 'acceptable' proof of US citizenship. Federal (and State) can.

[NathDaniel]

02:40 PM on 04/16/2011

It's amazing what a bunch of white supremacists will do to spite a black person. How many more copies of a Hawaiian birth record does one have to see? Let me break it down for you white pride idiots: Obama was born in Hawaii. Hawaii is part of the United States> Obama is born in the United States.

That wasn't so hard after all. Now you cowboys and girls can go back to committing incest, drinking moonshine and burning crosses.

If someone had given George W. Bush the runaround, we could have avoided his 2nd term, a recession and a war.

[CessnaDriverI72]

03:37 PM on 04/16/2011

Read the post just above yours.

[CessnaDriverI72]

10:29 PM on 04/16/2011

All lies.

If you won't accept absolute proof, why should anyone believe that you will accept other absolute proof?

[emp122]

08:57 AM on 04/17/2011

What about ALL the state officials who verified that his COLB is legit? Besides, isn't his mother a US citizen?

[hoobit]

01:48 PM on 04/16/2011

Wow - just imagine how much 'cred' for her exotic-ness Stanley Ann Dunham would have with a child born in Kenya!

Here's a white woman from Kansas, who lived in Texas, California, and Washington State before moving (after high school graduation) with her parents to the newly admitted state of Hawai'i...a still pretty exotic place in the early 60s; exotic, but possibly not *quite* exotic enough, for Stanley Ann Dunham...

So she meets a man from Kenya -- a black man -- is impregnated by him, and marries him (against wishes of both sets of parents) at 18. What better way to show how exotic, how independent, how liberal she is, than to travel to her husband's Kanya to birth that baby?

And she does.

All she has to do, then, is go to the US Embassy and/or Consulate in Kenya, register the birth, and get a passport for her wee bairn so she can return to Hawai'i...she wants, after all, her child to be a US citizen just like she is. The Dept of State issues a passport with child's birthplace listed as (Someplace), Kenya.

When they get to Hawai'i, she takes her son's documentation to the State Registrar to register his Kenyan birth.

...but she has second thoughts: "Please write he was born in Honolulu," she says. "Sure," they say, "the law requires we write the *actual* place of birth on the certificate, but for you, Stanley Ann Obama..."

Do I have that right, Birthers?

[CessnaDriverI72]

03:38 PM on 04/16/2011

Another question for the birfers: How far is it from Honolulu to Mombasa?

[James McGill]

02:37 AM on 04/18/2011

Heck, how do you even get from Nairobi to Mombasa in 1961? By train through the Rift Valley? Even on the modern train they have today it's a 14 hour trip. She's have to get to Nairobi somehow. It's not a small trip for a pregnant teenage college student to make... And how much harder is that trip if you need to not leave any kind of record? Did she make the trip alone? If not, then it's even more difficult to not leave a record. Granted, the trip is not impossible -- Barack Sr. did it. But there is absolutely no evidence that Stanley Ann ever left the country in 1961. Even if we *wanted* to entertain the birther conjecture, we could not, for want of this evidence.

But the birthers long ago left the idea of a Kenyan birth behind them. Today they argue about dual citizenship or the implications of De Vattel. Most birthers nowadays actually acknowledge that he was born in Hawaii, but they have completely different arguments about his eligibility that transcend birthplace.

YOU try arguing with them. I just engage them for entertainment.

[emp122]

09:01 AM on 04/17/2011

All speculation with no proof, the same thing you are accusing him of.

[hoobit]

01:58 PM on 04/17/2011

{Ummm, emp122 -- if by "you", you are referring to me and CessnaDriver172, you might want to reread my post and CessnaDriver172s response. Both posts point out (some of the multiple) absurdities of the birther's whackadoodle 'position' on POTUSs citizenship; both are taking the birther's assertions / paths of 'thinking', and making points / asking questions of them that would necessarily and logically follow (*their* claims.)

Logic, obviously, is not one of these folk's strong suits...if it were, they would have long ago moved on from demanding proof of POTUSs birth, to some other piece of equally inane bee-ess to rant and rale over.}

[Zack B]

11:23 AM on 04/16/2011

The poster shown in the lead of this story reads, "Obama Where's Your Papers?" This alone speaks volumes about the Tea Party and "birthers" in Arizona. One could only respond by saying, "they is over their on the table next to your brain's"

[dwhuston]

12:01 PM on 04/16/2011

Sorry, the only things on the table I can see are papers :)

[Hunter W]

12:20 PM on 04/16/2011

One sign "speaks volumes"? Obviously you don't hold everyone to that same standard. What about Obama's 57 states?

[TwinX]

12:29 PM on 04/16/2011

Erm, you do know he *had* visited some states more than once?

[CessnaDriverI72]

03:39 PM on 04/16/2011

"Is our children learning?"