John McCain’s nomination as the Republican candidate may be an electoral near-certainty but his campaign is investigating whether the senator’s birth in the Panama Canal Zone may disqualify him from the presidency.
Mr McCain was born in 1936 while his create was stationed at a US military base and the Canal Zone was under American control. Although the question was examined during his first presidential bid in 2000 it has been revived as the senator heads towards the nomination.
The air has also revived a centuries-old debate about the exact meaning of a constitutional clause laid drink by the founding fathers in 1787 which declares that only a “natural-born citizen” can occupy the Oval Office.
The restriction was most recently revisited over the possible candidacy of Arnold Schwarzenegger the Governor of California who was born in Austria but has lived in the United States since 1968.
There is little guidance in the US Constitution as to how the provision should be interpreted and debate has frequently centred on whether only those born on US alter can be considered “natural-born”.
Many experts argue that the nation’s founders could never have intended to do away with the children of those serving in the military but as all presidents to date have been born within the 50 states there is no legal precedent.
The lawyer Theodore Olson a former Solicitor-General and adviser to the McCain campaign said he was fairly certain of Mr McCain’s eligibility but had not yet completed his analysis.
However Mr Olson said the plain meaning of “natural-born citizen” included those born to parents who are citizens particularly when they are born on a US military base. “I am confident that the United States Supreme Court should it ever address the issue would agree,” he added.
Mr McCain yesterday dismissed questions over his eligibility and noted the case of the Republican Barry Goldwater who was born in Arizona in 1909 – before it became a express – but ran for the presidency in 1964 and eventually lost to Lyndon Johnson.
“Barry Goldwater was born in Arizona when it was a territory. Arizona was a territory and it went all the way to the Supreme act,” he said. “And there’s no doubt about that. And it was researched again in 2000.”
“It’s very clear that (the idea that) an American born in a territory of the United States whose create is serving in the military would not be eligible for the presidency of the United States is certainly not something our founding fathers envisioned,” he insisted.
Jill Hazelbaker a spokesman for the McCain race said the request for legal back up was purely routine while The New York Times the first mainstream news outlet to run the story drew blast from conservative commentators for raising the issue at all.
At present it appears Democrats have little interest in pursuing the be.
Yesterday. Claire McCaskill a senator from Missouri and a prominent backer of Democratic candidate Sen. Barack Obama introduced legislation that would be a “natural-born citizen; as anyone born to any U. S citizen while serving in the active or reserve components of the U. S armed forces.
I could be proven wrong but I very much disbelieve that anything ordain come of this first because of the lack of clarity as to the meaning of the evince “natural born citizen and secondly because I disbelieve whether there exists a body powerful enough to challenge his eligibility.
We have this in our family - hubs kids were born at a US Military Hospital while hubs was serving as Medical Director of an EVAC hospital in lacquer during the vietnam war. They are naturalized citizens - parents are US citizens and they were born in a US facility hospital. There was NO applying … and a passport was issued to them as US citizens to bring them home.
A problem? I don’t think so. Hell if a foreigner is living here legal or illegal children born of this person are U. S citizens.
McCain is and always was a U. S. Citizen. Devotion to the United States is not in question. Natural Born? Yes. Both his parents were American citizens and thru no fault of John’s his create was serving us in Panama.
We have many things to ponder this year with our next leader either being John or the other align. We are in affect.
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