A bill has passed the Arizona State legislature to require a birth certificate for a Presidential candidate to appear on the ballot. It’s a Governor’s signature away from becoming law.
The White House’s official response was to call the effort the result of “fringe right-wing radio conspiracy theories.”
I’m not sure what’s so bad about the idea. State’s require lots of things of candidates – declaring under penalty of perjury where they live, where they get their mail, what their investment portfolios are. Presenting legal documentation of your qualification to run doesn’t seem too extreme.
But the “legal experts” wonder if Arizona can.
“It’s an interference with federal supremacy. It’s not up for a state to decide who is qualified to run for president,” said Laurence Tribe, a professor at Harvard Law School.
The fact that Tribe worked for the Obama administration had absolutely nothing to do with his legal assessment.
There is a point in there, though. The Constitution spells explicitly gives states little more power than appointing electors, but they alone can proscribe the manner in which electors are selected.
States all have differing requirements to get on their ballots. Seems to me well within Arizona’s rights to set whatever rules they want, especially since this rule is designed to enforce the specific Constitutional requirement that the President be a natural born citizen.
My only question is “Why would the Obama administration oppose this?”
If the question is as absurd as they say it is, it shouldn’t be any problem meeting the test.
If it becomes law, and the Obama Justice Department takes action against it, I’ll be the first person to ask why.
