Affirm the Almost-Ahnold Amendment
Recently, William Safire has joined the chorus of supporters of the drive to Amend for Arnold. Captain Ed and Kim du Toit say no. Chris Lawrence says yes. Dog Trainer letter writer Julie Tankenson offers a completely retarded argument against the amendment, while O.C. Register letter writer Marilyn V. Moir voices legitimate concerns about dual nationality.
In its present form, Article II, Section 1, clause 5 of the U.S. Constution reads as follows:
No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
First, let’s dismiss some of the sillier arguments on both sides of the debate.
- The Constitution is sacred. Don’t amend it. Despite its popular appeal, this argument is probably the dumbest of all. The Constitution is a damned fine document, but part of its genius was its framers’ recognition that it needed to be changed on occasion. The original Constitution contemplated slavery, and even gave slave states artificially high levels of representation by counting non-voting slaves as 3/5 of a person for purposes of Congressional districting. It contained no Bill of Rights, and probably would not have been ratified without a promise that it would be amended at least 10 times almost immediately after its adoption. Besides, the Constitution gets informally “amended” by rogue judges all the time. The last thing we should be worried about is the prospect of anyone amending the Constitution according to the procedure that the Constitution itself provides, especially over a requirement the framers themselves valued so little that they exempted their own generation from its application.
- OK, maybe it’s OK to amend the Constitution every now and then, but for chrissakes, don’t do it for one person. Why the hell not? If there had only been one slave at the end of the Civil War, would it have been wrong to amend the Constitution just to benefit him? Right is right, and wrong is wrong. The number of people who stand to benefit from the rightness or be harmed by the wrongness is irrelevant. In any event, the argument against amending the Constitution for one person is no stronger than the argument against NOT amending the Constitution for one person.
- The existing rule prohibits natural born citizens born abroad from running for President. This is one of Willam Safire’s canards. In fact, Clause 5 doesn’t say anything about where the citizens must be born, only that they must be “natural born” citizens. The only straightforward reading of this requirement is that anyone whose citizenship arose naturally from birth will meet this requirement. Indeed, the separate requirement that the citizen have resided in the U.S. for 14 years appears to complate the possibility that some natural born citizens will grow up elsewhere, so presumably, if the framers had intended to require all citizens to be born within the U.S., they would have stated so clearly. This controversy arose when George Romney considered a run for the Presidency, but in the end, the reason he didn’t get to run was that he made an idiotic statement about being “brainwashed” on Vietnam, not because he was born to American
missionariessettlers in Mexico. Besides, if the real concern were merely that natural born citizens born outside the U.S. are not “natural born citizens” qualified to run for President, that would be an argument for a narrower amendment to clarify that issue only. It has no bearing on the merits of an “Arnold Amendment.” - If the Ahnold Amendment passes, George Soros, Jennifer Granholm and the Terminator (the evil one from T1, not just the kinder, gentler versions from T2 and 3) could run for President. Yeah, and if it’s not, Tim Robbins, Alec Baldwin, Robert Redford, Hillary Clinton and even Michael Badnarik can. So what? Besides, if George Soros’s millions couldn’t buy an election for a seasoned political veteran like John Kerry, what makes you think he could buy one for himself? For an sense of how well that strategy works, ask former U.S. Presidents H. Ross Perot and Malcolm “Call Me Steve” Forbes, or U.S. Senator Michael “If You’d Married Her, You’d Be Gay, Too” Huffington.
- People raised in another country can’t be completely loyal to ours. Baloney. I was raised as a pinko, America-bashing jerk. Every day I thank God the World Wide Web didn’t catch on in the early 1980s, because if it had, “Sorry Everybody!” would have happened in 1984, and I probably would have ended up on it. Today, I’m as patriotic as anybody, but it has more to do with my experiences as an adult than the fact that I was raised in a country I was constantly encouraged to question anyway.
- Naturalized citizens can be just as loyal as natives, yet they are arbitrarily banned from seeking the highest office. It ain’t fair! Too bad. Life ain’t fair. When it comes to entrusting one person with the the immense powers a President wields, fairness should be the least of our concerns. Either we should amend the Constitution for society’s benefit, or we shouldn’t amend it at all.
- Why are we even discussing this issue, when we haven’t had a single black/female/gay/Wiccan/vegetarian/hippie/etc. as President? Because our existing Constitution does not prohibit blacks, females, gays, Wiccans, vegetarians or hippies from running for office. No go back to your seat in the corner, and put your nice, pretty, tall hat back on. That’s right, the cone shape is to show the world how smart you are.
That said, I do think there is a legitimate concern about divided loyalty. Past allegiance to a foreign state does not concern me much, but present or very recent allegiance does. And if we’re going to bother amending the Presidential requirement at all, isn’t it also time to do away with the idea of 35 year old Presidents? Thus, as an alternative to the three current proposals circulating in Washington, I propose the following version of the 28th Amendment instead:
No Person except a
natural bornCitizen,or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution,shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age ofthirtyforty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States and been twenty Years a Citizen of the United States, nor shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall have been a Citizen of any other nation during the preceding ten years..
As a dual national who could not be eligible to run before 2016 at the earliest, I’m not counting on Arnold’s support for this amendment. Then again, I won’t be able to run until at least 2012 myself, so if I can support the amendment for the greater good of the country, so can he.
November 25th, 2004 at 10:33 pm
My proposal never got any love. :cry:
November 25th, 2004 at 10:37 pm
Whoops, never mind. Reread, and I see why.
The jury will please disregard that dumb comment. Note to self: Stop reading things on the interweb before my cup ‘o joe.
November 25th, 2004 at 10:46 pm
I think this cleaner:
No Person shall be eligible to the Office of President who has not been exclusively a Citizen of the United States for the preceding 20 years; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of forty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
November 26th, 2004 at 6:55 am
It’s certainly better structurally. However, 20 year exclusivity requirement strikes me as a bit excessive. How about this?
It’s an easier read, but involves a leap of faith that courts either won’t get involved in the issue, or will give a pass to naturalized citizens whose countries of origin refuse to accept them as non-citizens.
November 26th, 2004 at 11:42 am
We shouldn’t amend the constitution for what amounts to a triviality. Allowing naturalized citizens to run for president is hardly up there with ending slavery or prohibition. It’s not like there have been street protests for or against this.
Past allegiance to a foreign state does not concern me much, but present or very recent allegiance does
Anyone who’s born in a foreign country has some form of allegiance to that country no matter what they do. They might like or not like the current leaders of that country, but they probably like the country itself.
Could we trust a Cuban-American naturalized president? Some of them would be virulently anti-Castro and virlently pro-pre-Castro-Cuba, others might be deep deep cover Cuban agents.
Austria isn’t in Cuba’s league, but what if Arnold is given the choice between something that’s pro-U.S. and anti-Austria? Wouldn’t he hesitate a bit? Would he have that same hesitation if it concerned Norway?
There are too many potential downsides and the upsides are statistically insignificant. There are millions of people who are eligible to be president right now, I think we can a good candidate from among that group.
November 26th, 2004 at 11:47 am
I’ll also add that China and other countries are in the same league as Cuba.
I don’t doubt that China has a program to send us people who appear to be anti-Communists but who are actually deep cover agents. If you don’t think China and other countries wouldn’t consider sending people here specifically to run for president you haven’t been paying attention to their history of long-term planning.
November 26th, 2004 at 12:10 pm
LW, you’re cracking me up. I’m sure that even as we speak, China is sending fake anti-communists to apply for green cards now, so they can apply for U.S. citizenship a few years from now, sever all formal ties to China ten years after that, and run for President as stealth communists ten years after that. Puh-leeze. It isn’t as though we have any shortage of home-grown commies, why not work with them instead?
As to Cuba, suppose Elian Gonzalez had been allowed to stay in Florida, and became a naturalized citizen anytime before his 18th birthday. Is there any reason to think he’d be any less qualified to run for office than his U.S.-born cousin?
Maybe a better illustration would be to return to your favorite topic, illegal immigration. Suppose that two childless Mexican couples both decide to immigrate to the U.S. Couple #1 applies for a legal immigrant visa, resulting in years of red tape. Couple #2 says screw the law, and hires a coyote to bring them over illegally. Both couples have children. Three years later, Couple #1’s visa is finally approved, and they move to the U.S. Guess whose kid gets to run for President?
November 26th, 2004 at 1:45 pm
xrlq–
I thought about that 20 year exclusivity thing, an decided that I cared a lot more about fewer clauses than about how fair 20 years exclusivity was. Consider Souter when you add a clause.
November 26th, 2004 at 1:48 pm
As for foreign countries insisting that someone remains a citizen: I think US law still prevails, and that is based, I think, on date of renunciation.
November 26th, 2004 at 3:08 pm
I’m sure that even as we speak, China is sending fake anti-communists to apply for green cards now
The Chinese have had an organized civilization for thousands of years. Given that backdrop, one might be able to understand that they are able to engage in long-term planning.
While I’m sure almost all China-born Americans are 100% Americans, there are no doubt a good number who are deep cover Chinese operatives. (For an example from Cuba, look into “numbers stations.”) It doesn’t take much to assume that they would want both under-the-radar people and people who could assume a major role in their community. It doesn’t take much to go from there to assume that they wouldn’t mind a politician who was in fact one of their operatives.
I haven’t read it, but The China Threat has more on Chinese espionage, as does this. Googling “Panama canal china shipping company” will probably bring up additional interesting material.
November 26th, 2004 at 3:21 pm
Assume you’re right. What particularized threat is there from naturalized Chinese that doesn’t exist from U.S. born Americans of Chinese extraction? And why should I be more afraid of either group than I am of a natural born citizen like Bill Clinton, who did a much better job selling out the nation’s interests to China than any foreign born Manchurian candidate could ever hope to?
I notice that you conveniently did not answer my previous question about why a Mexican born citizen raised by legal immigrants should not be qualified to run for President, while a U.S. born citizen born to illegals should be. I take your silence as a tacit admission that some sort of change is in order.
November 26th, 2004 at 7:45 pm
My solution to that problem would be for judicial clarification of the 14th Amendment to ban anchor babies.
There might be less of a threat from a naturalized citizen than from the child of immigrants. The latter might have an idealized image of his parent’s country or its current leaders, while the former might be strongly opposed based on personal experience.
The bottom line is this: this amendment isn’t really needed. There are too many possible things that could go wrong, and too little upside. If we want to send the message that America is a land of immigrants, perhaps we should concentrate on Arnold’s kids rather than Arnold himself.
November 26th, 2004 at 7:48 pm
Also, from this: It may seem odd for Cuba to have its secret transmissions hiding in plain sight, able to be heard by virtually anyone. And if the ongoing broadcast of these numbers is any indication, Cuba already has inserted a new Wasp Network into South Florida to replace its captured spies… Now Smolinski can play before-and-after, matching up his own recordings of the original spy broadcasts with their decoded instructions to get chummy with American military personnel at the Boca Chica air base (”prioritize and continue to strengthen friendship with Joe and Dennis”), infiltrate the staffs of local Cuban-exile politicians Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, as well as the anti-Castro airborne group Brothers to the Rescue (”Under no circumstances should [agents] German nor Castor fly with BTTR or another organization on days 24, 25, 26, and 27″). Not least important was this reminder: “Congratulate all the female comrades for International Day of the Woman.”
November 26th, 2004 at 10:33 pm
Unless we change the constitution, then we essentially have two tiers of citizenship. In other words, some citizens are more equal than others. We should amend for Albright.
November 27th, 2004 at 4:25 am
Minor note: if both your parents are American citizens, you’re a natural-born citizen no matter where you were born.
Right now a number of people in foreign lands, including Chinese, make a point of coming over here, having a baby to get the kid American citizenship, and leaving. It’s more common than you might think.
But this whole idea of the “divided loyalty” stuff is nonsense anyway. No one gets elected President of this country without every aspect of his life being put under a microscope. The presumption that somehow a sleeper agent will get elected President is kind of silly; the notion that the ban on naturalized citizens is a protection against that is just silly.
Amending the Constitution to be more fair is a perfectly good argument in my view. If people perceive an inequity there’s no reason not to address it.
The real reason we haven’t done this before is probably no more than that there’s been no pressing reason to do it. However it’s a minor stick in the craw of some folks, and an unnecessary one.
We amended the Constitution in 1993 and hardly anyone knew about it. Why? It was trivial: Congress can’t enact pay raises for itself without first facing re-election. Big deal.
By the way, I’d be in favor of this without Arnold in the picture. I really don’t know how I’d feel about President Arnold. If the objection is that people don’t want to amend just for Arnold, there’s an easy solution:
Write the amendment so it doesn’t actually take effect until 2010.
November 27th, 2004 at 5:36 am
A Justifiable Foreign-Born President
All of this hype surrounding Gov. Schwarzenegger’s supposed future eligibility to run for president gives me an opportunity to opine about something that has been bugging me for a while.
The Constitutional language regarding foreign-born citizens s…
November 27th, 2004 at 9:31 am
Dean: my version would take effect immediately, but the earliest it could take effect for Arnold is 2016, assuming he is willing to dump his Austrian citizenship sometime between now and ‘06.
November 29th, 2004 at 4:27 pm
The question of “exclusivity” of US citizenship is moot. Many countries, including my country of birth and former nationality, either refuse to lift nationality at all or do so only after strong and lengthy petitions. Canadians cannot lose their birth nationality except after long and costly suit in the Canadian courts. In some cases, especially less-developed countries, natural-born citizens simply never, ever lose citizenship and there is no formal way to remove it. “Once a Slobbovian, always a Slobbovian,” so to speak, and sometimes simply irreversible.
When you become a naturalized US citizen, you take an oath, both *to* the US and *against* all other loyalties. That’s probably enough. If you’re a Slobbovian-loving mole running for president, the blogs will out you. Otherwise, run for it.
November 29th, 2004 at 4:36 pm
Dean Esmay writes:
YES it is “common,” but the two statements are exclusive. A child born in the US is certainly natural born.
But your first sentence is the important one, and highly questionable. It’s not so simply because you say so. The child of two Americans born overseas is an American BY APPLICATION to the US State Department but (a) not automatically and (b) not necessarily “natural born” as you state. I know of no court decision on this, as there will be when (not if) a person of this circumstance eventually runs for US president. A child born to one or two American parents overseas must APPLY for a certificate of birth abroad and then must apply AGAIN for documents proving nationality such as passport. No, (s)he does NOT apply for nationality as a new American like Ahnold (and me) but (s)he does NOT get US nationality automatically — the child must have those documents.
But even then, you do not even address the case of a child born abroad to one American and one non-American parent, a case much more common than Chinese and others having their babies born in America — much more common. This child is just as eligible for US nationality as one with two American parents, but is this boy or girl “natural born.” I need a better answer than “I say he is.”
It’s not as simple as you state, although it may be that the courts will rule such children are natural born, as they should. I would hope so, but courts don’t always rule as I hope.
November 29th, 2004 at 5:51 pm
Reagan was talking about a third term but I think he put it pretty well: “The American people should be able to vote for whoever they want to”. But he also said it shouldn’t apply to a current president if the rules changed, so that would have kept him from a third term anyway.
November 29th, 2004 at 5:53 pm
I think that anyone who is a citizen by birth – whether by bloodlines, or by virtue of where he is born – is a “natural born citizen” under the existing Constitution. If not, what is the basis for distinguishing those born to one U.S. citizen abroad from those born to two?
Will the courts agree with me? Time will tell. My bet is that they’ll rule the issue a “political question,” which is legalize for “we’re not touching this with a ten-foot pole.”
November 30th, 2004 at 12:37 am
Why not just make it anyone can be President? The Constitution is meant to save us from our selves to a certain degree (i.e. the bill of rights). If the people decide that they want to elect an illegal alien, why should the Constitution stop them? If someone is of dual nationality, the electorate is aware of this, and votes for them anyway, why should the Constitution stop them? Same goes for those under 35 and not living in the country for 14 years.
December 1st, 2004 at 9:38 am
Test case (if he were still alive)
Would anyone like the constitution amended so that Winston Churchill would have been eligible? He was a British citizen (”subject”, we said then) with an American mother, wasn’t he?