Re: "even if you assume that being born of two citizen parents doesn't make you a citizen wherever you are born (an assumption you have given no one any reason to support)."
That's because I NEVER made that assumption!
Without that assumption there is no reason to challenge McCain's eligibility.
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Child of two Americans = new American. A fact not in dispute. (No need to keep raising.)
I'm not raising "child of two Americans", I'm raising "child of two Americans equals natural born citizen"
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Which --- (as I've also repeatedly given evidence for) --- the US Supreme Court has definitively ruled is up to Congress to decide....
Rogers v. Bellei, 401 U.S. 815 (1971)
Held: Congress has the power to impose the condition subsequent of residence in this country on appellee, who does not come within the Fourteenth Amendment's definition of citizens as those "born or naturalized in the United States," and its imposition is not unreasonable, arbitrary, or unlawful. Afroyim v. Rusk, supra, and Schneider v. Rusk, supra, distinguished. Pp. 401 U. S. 820-836.
supreme.justia.com
Or in other words, the court decided that congress could impose restrictions or limitations. It didn't say or imply that in the absence of a law directly imposing such a limitation or restriction that the child of two Americans citizens (or even just one) is not a US citizen.
As for professor Chin's challange
"At the time of Mr. McCain’s birth, the relevant law granted citizenship to any child born to an American parent “out of the limits and jurisdiction of the United States.” Professor Chin said the term “limits and jurisdiction” left a crucial gap. The Canal Zone was beyond the limits of the United States but not beyond its jurisdiction, and thus the law did not apply to Mr. McCain.
In 1937, Congress addressed the problem, enacting a law that granted citizenship to people born in the Canal Zone after 1904. That made Mr. McCain a citizen, but not one who was naturally born, Professor Chin said, because the citizenship was conferred after his birth."
nytimes.com
So Chin seems to be saying if McCain was born on the moon that he would be a natural born US citizen, because the moon was beyond the limits and jurisdiction of the US, but since Panama was only beyond the limits but not beyond the jurisdiction, the previous law did not apply. That's a pretty far fetched argument.
But even if you accept it, I have to thank the NYT for clearing up the ambiguity about if the 1937 applied retroactively. It DID. It applied to anyone born in the canal zone after 1904. Which includes McCain. So if the constitution (according to the supreme court) leaves it up to congress, congress has had its say, and it say makes McCain a natural born US citizen.
Also see
tokenconservative.com
and
"...6. The Times article contains a fair amount of handwringing over the fact that there has been no authoritative Supreme Court ruling on this presidential eligibility issue—though near the end it recognizes the difficulty of determining who might have "legal standing" to raise the issue in a court of law. This is the simplest question of all. No one has standing. This is a quintessentially political question, to be settled outside the judiciary by the constitutional authorities responsible for choosing presidents. If, next January, the joint session of Congress, presided over by Vice President Cheney, determines that John McCain is to be president by virtue of a victory in the electoral college, and either assumes silently or addresses openly (in case of a member's objection) the question of McCain's U.S. citizenship eligibility and holds in his favor, that will be an authoritative settlement of the matter—at least as far as McCain is concerned. No court of law could possibly have authority to gainsay such a decision. It never ceases to amaze me, though, how many otherwise sharp legal analysts consider constitutional questions to be unsettled until the Supreme Court has something to say on them..."
bench.nationalreview.com |
