By Angel Castillo Jr.
The state of Florida, now known as much for election controversies as oranges and sunshine, may still hold a surprise for everyone who thought the 2012 presidential election was over and done with.
In a largely forgotten court case being litigated in Tallahassee, lawyers are still arguing about whether President Barack Obama was qualified to run for president in the first place.
Attorney Larry E. Klayman of Washington, D.C., a controversial Republican activist, and his client, Michael C. Voeltz, a registered Democrat from Broward County, have refused to concede the election outcome. They are still pursuing an Obama “birther” challenge in an appeal in Tallahassee.
The judges of the Florida First District Court of Appeal have refused to submit the case immediately to the Florida Supreme Court, as requested by Klayman. On Nov. 27 they also refused a Klayman request that the court handle the appeal on an expedited basis.
Klayman is advancing two arguments: (1) Obama has never established that he is a “natural born citizen” as required under Article II of the U.S. Constitution because his Hawaii birth certificate posted online “has either been altered or is entirely fraudulent”; and (2) Obama was born to a mother who was a United States citizen and a father who was a citizen of Kenya, and to be a “natural born citizen” a candidate for president must have been born in this country to two U.S. citizen parents.
Unfortunately, the term “natural born citizen” is not defined in the Constitution.
Klayman began his legal challenge by filing suit in the state circuit court in Tallahassee in February, asking Circuit Judge Terry P. Lewis to declare that Obama was not constitutionally eligible to run for president.
Obama’s lawyers relied on an 1898 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, United States v. Wong Kim Ark, which held that every person “born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, becomes at once a citizen of the United States”. In that case – which did not involve a president’s qualifications — a cook born in San Francisco whose parents were both Chinese citizens living in this country was held to be a U.S. citizen at birth under the Fourteenth Amendment.
In June, agreeing with Obama’s lawyers, Judge Lewis granted their motion to dismiss the lawsuit.
In his appeal, Klayman is arguing that being a U.S. “citizen” and a “natural born citizen” qualified to run for president are not constitutional equivalents.
He is arguing that the authors of Article II consulted and relied on a 1758 treatise by Swiss legal expert Emmerich de Vattel called “The Law of Nations”. That treatise states that “natural born citizens are those born in the country of parents who are citizens” and that “the country of the father is the country of the son”.
The task of defining who is a “natural born citizen” could end up before the U.S. Supreme Court. Of course, by then the president may well have finished his second term.
Angel Castillo, Jr., a former reporter and editor for the New York Times and The Miami Herald, practices employment law in Miami. He can be reached at [email protected].
Angela Smith says
Captain CombOver is a bloviating gasbag in love with the sound of his own voice.
Ron says
Stop wasting everyone’s time – this has already been decided.
This whole birther thing is rather pathetic.
Yellowstone says
Ah com’on . . . Where’s your sense of humor?
There are thousands of us in the ‘Flat Earth Society’ that know that the proper noun “Hawaii” is a Kenyan word for birthplace of Presidents.
Have a cup of tea with us – and get over it!
Magnolia says
@Ron, so pathetic in fact that he felt he had to spend millions to keep that and his school records a secret?
jespo says
WMD’s, Blackwater, Haliburton, tens of thousands dead in an unecessary war, 999, Palinism, the preachings of Sanscrotum, the Bachman Beast, Fix News, 47%, and the irrelevancy that is The Donald….THAT is what pathetic means…
Donald says
The “sheeple” follow what ever the “commie-in-chief” wants them to believe. The Chicago community organizer who NO ONE remembers in high school or college. The “NO EXPERIENCE” political puppet who’s mother was a white trash slu* and father was a drunken communist from kenya. And magically appears in the birth records of some 3rd rate hospital in Hawaii after 3 years of searching records. Oh yea,
he’s a natural born citizen alright. And your mexican grass cutter is really from Ireland !!!!!!!!
NortonSmitty says
“WMD’s, Blackwater, Haliburton, tens of thousands dead in an unecessary war,” All of the above is a start.. Add to that $ billions unaccounted for from the Pentagon, 9/11 facts ignored, not one but 2 stolen elections undeniably documented, Wall Street blatant crimes, torture, war crimes and Katrina. I could go on for hours.
And the”Hope and Change” guy has not prosecuted one of these blatant crimes committed by his sworn political enemies?
Don’t care where he was born, something stinks here. I’ll say it once more:
Biggest. Trojan. Horse. Ever.
Liana G says
NortonSmitty, you’re back! Happy Holidays! Add Manchurian Candidate, Machiavellian, MK-Ultra and the latest “Forward” mantra. And something stinks to high heaven! We have been royally had!
Jennifer S says
For a group of people who generally are very quick to make ill-informed statements (based on their own misguided beliefs of knowing it all) & hell bent on berating the government over its unprecedented spending they certainly have no qualms about wasting a lot of time, money, & energy on something as frivolous & revolting in pursuit of this “birther” CRAP.
I doubt these particular individuals are savvy enough to even recognize the deeply rooted ugliness of their own internal struggles with race & their putrid & sickening abilities to be the real reason we live in such a divisive day & age.
This constant bombardment with the message of US vs. THEM, which if one were to extrapolate this concept even the tiniest bit further, could easily see how this very clearly & unfortunately harkens very directly to an ugly part of our collective past in which 1 group believes they are far superior over another.
THE VOICE OF REASON says
So if this court rules he was never eligible to run, would that automatically reverse everything he’s done?
Might have a loophole out of Obamacare here.
;-)