Beginning in March 2008, a number of court cases were filed challenging Senator John McCain’s eligibility to serve as President of the United States. The first McCain eligibility challenge was filed by a Nashua, New Hampshire Republican named Fred Hollander.
In his petition, Hollander asserted that he brought the action to prevent the disenfranchisement of himself and an estimated 100 million additional voters who might otherwise cast their votes in the 2008 General Election for a candidate who may later be declared ineligible for the Office of President. Hollander alleged that McCain was ineligible to serve because he was not born within the geographic boundaries of the United States.
McCain was represented by former U.S. Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson, a conservative Republican, and by Harvard Law professor Laurence H. Tribe, a liberal Democrat. Olson and Tribe prepared a memorandum on the “natural born citizen” question which concluded that McCain was, in fact, a natural-born citizen based on: a) the place of his birth [the Coco Solo Naval Air Station in the Panama Canal Zone, a U.S. military installation], b) the citizenship of his parents [both were natural born U.S. citizens], and c) their service to the country.
Hoping to put an end to what were clearly groundless challenges to McCain’s eligibility, the U.S. Senate on April 30, 2008, passed a resolution, by a vote of 99-0, declaring that, “Whereas John Sidney McCain, III, was born to American citizens on an American military base in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936: Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That John Sidney McCain, III, is a ‘‘natural born citizen’’ under Article II, Section 1, of the Constitution of the United States.
What is most intriguing about the Senate Resolution is the emphasis placed on the citizenship status of both of McCain’s parents. In an April 10, 2008 statement in support of the resolution, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said, “Based on the understanding of the pertinent sources of constitutional meaning, it is widely believed that if someone is born to American citizens anywhere in the world they are natural born citizens. Because he was born to American citizens, there is no doubt in my mind that Senator McCain is a natural born citizen (emphasis added).”
In short, one of the most celebrated heroes of the Vietnam War, a man who suffered almost daily torture at the hands of his Vietnamese captors, a man who refused repatriation because he would have been released from captivity ahead of men who’d been imprisoned longer than he, a man with a distinguished military career who was the son and the grandson of U.S. Navy admirals… this man was made to undergo rigorous vetting before the members of the United States Senate voted unanimously that he was eligible to serve as President of the United States.
But what about Obama? Who took the responsibility for vetting a candidate who was born to an African father, a citizen of Kenya, and who had little or no qualifications for the job… other than a presidential-sized ego and the ability to read well from a teleprompter? In all fairness, the same emphasis placed on McCain’s parentage by those who studied the question of his eligibility should now be applied to Obama, even at this late date… especially at this late date.
As a starting point we can begin with an assertion made in an August 6, 2008 profile of Obama’s background and qualifications in the now-defunct Rocky Mountain News. In that profile, the authors called attention to Obama’s parentage by asserted that Obama “Holds both American and Kenyan (since 1963) citizenship.”
When that assertion was challenged by Obama supporters, it was thoroughly investigated by the authoritative and highly-respected Internet watchdog, FactCheck.org, of the Annenberg Center for Public Policy. Without delving into other charges surrounding Obama’s status as a “natural born” citizen… his paternal grandmother’s insistence that she was present at his birth in Kenya, his Indonesian citizenship, etc., etc… FactCheck analyzed the dual citizenship issue only from the standpoint of what was known about Obama from the best possible source: Obama himself.
According to Obama, he was born in Honolulu, Hawaii on August 4, 1961, to an American mother, 17-year-old Stanley Ann Dunham, and a Kenyan father, Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. As proof of their assertion that Obama was also a citizen of Kenya, FactCheck relied on provisions of the British Nationality Act of 1948, Sections 4 and 5.
Under Part II, Section 4 of the Act, Obama’s father became a British citizen by reason of the fact that he was born on the soil of a British colony, Kenya. Section 4 reads as follows: “Subject to the provisions of this section, every person born within the United Kingdom and Colonies after the commencement of this Act shall be a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies by birth…”
Section 5(1) of the Act applies to Obama. It reads, in part, as follows: “(1) Subject to the provisions of this section, a person born after the commencement of this Act shall be a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies by descent if his father is a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies at the time of the birth…”
When Obama was born in 1961, either in Hawaii or at some other place, he automatically became a British citizen “by descent” from his father. It was thus that Obama was born with dual British-American citizenship.
However, Obama’s dual British-American citizenship was short lived. Following Kenya’s independence from Great Britain on December 12, 1963, Kenya’s newly-adopted Constitution went into effect. Chapter VI, Section 87[3] of that Constitution, relating to citizenship, provides as follows:
“(1) Every persons who, having been born in Kenya, is on 11th December, 1963 a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies, or a British protected person, shall become a citizen of Kenya on 12th December 1963. Provided that a person shall not become a citizen of Kenya by virtue of this subsection if neither of his parents was born in Kenya. (Obama’s father was born in Kenya, as were both of his paternal grandparents.)
“(2) Every person who, having been born outside Kenya, is on 11th December, 1963 a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies, or a British protected person, shall, if his father becomes, or would but for his death have become a citizen of Kenya by virtue of subsection (1), become a citizen of Kenya on 12th December, 1963.”
In other words, on December 12, 1963, just two years and four months after he was born, Obama lost his dual US-British citizenship and became, instead, a dual citizen of the United States and Kenya. However, Kenyan dual citizenship was not without its limits. Chapter VI, Section 97 (Dual Citizenship) of the Kenyan Constitution provides as follows:
“(1) A person who, upon the attainment of the age of twenty-one years, is a citizen of Kenya and also a citizen of some country other than Kenya shall, subject to subsection (7), cease to be a citizen of Kenya upon the specified date unless he has renounced his citizenship of that other country, taken the oath of allegiance and, in the case of a person who was born outside Kenya, made and registered such declaration of his intentions concerning residence as may be prescribed by or under an Act of Parliament.”
Under this provision of the Kenyan Constitution, Obama’s status as a citizen of Kenya would have automatically expired on his 21st birthday, August 4, 1982. However, under subsection (7), cited above, the Kenyan parliament provided a two year grace period in which dual citizens could make their selection of nationality.
Since Obama clearly did not renounce his U.S. citizenship in the two year grace period following his 21st birthday, his Kenyan citizenship automatically expired on August 4, 1984, his 23rd birthday. The Rocky Mountain News was incorrect in its original assertion that Obama held Kenyan citizenship continuously since 1963 and published a correction on September 3, 2009, acknowledging that Obama’s lost his Kenyan citizenship on August 4, 1984.
This, of course, ignores whatever complications may have arisen from Obama’s alleged adoption by his Indonesian stepfather, Lolo Soetoro, in 1967. If, in fact, Obama was adopted by his Indonesian stepfather, at age six, he would then have become an Indonesian citizen and the question of his eligibility would be even further complicated.
The question we are now faced with is this: Is it possible for an American citizen who was born to parents of mixed nationality… one American, one Kenyan… and who has held one or more dual citizenships, to also be considered a “natural born” citizen, eligible to serve as President of the United States? Is it not safe to assume that the Founding Fathers placed a “natural born” qualification on candidates for the office of president and vice president because of the inherent difficulties posed by a president or a vice president with divided loyalties?
And if Obama does not possess a degree of loyalty to his Luo tribe and to his large extended family in Kenya, why did he campaign in Kenya in 2006 with his cousin, Raila Odinga, the Marxist candidate of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), and why does an ODM campaign finance report dated November 9, 2007 show a $66,000 contribution from an entity described as “Friends of Senator BO?”
The Democratic Party failed us by nominating a man whose qualifications were uncertain; the Democratic members of the Electoral College failed us when they elected a man whom they had not properly vetted; and the entire U.S. Congress… Democrats and Republicans alike… failed us when they certified the ballots of the Electoral College without questioning his eligibility. 2008 was a year of failure for the people of America. Let’s all pray that we can survive it.