Frank Salvato
The recent ruling by the Hon. R. Barclay Surrick dismissing the lawsuit challenging Barack Obama’s citizenship, brought by former Deputy Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and Democrat county chair Phillip Berg, presents the genesis of a Constitutional Crisis. While Barack Obama’s refusal to satisfy the citizens’ request to validate his citizenship illustrates his unbridled arrogance and that of his campaign and supporters, it also exposes the fact that politics, at the hands of political opportunists and ideologues, has usurped the legitimate execution of the supreme law of the land; the United States Constitution.
Make no mistake. I do not support Barack Obama in his quest for the presidency. I find his political ideology to embrace a one-world ideology borrowing heavily from the Marxist-Leninist dogma. But, if in fact he is a legal and naturally born citizen of the United States of America, if he thoroughly satisfies the requirements as set forth in Article II, Section 1 of the United States Constitution, then I will defend his right to be placed on ballots across our nation. My concern is not partisan, it is constitutional.
Article II, Section 1 of the US Constitution reads:
"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."
In what may come as a surprise to many, the Federal Election Commission does not have authority to verify whether or not a presidential candidate has satisfied the constitutional requirements set forth for candidacy.
The FEC’s mission statement reads:
“In 1975, Congress created the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to administer and enforce the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) - the statute that governs the financing of federal elections. The duties of the FEC, which is an independent regulatory agency, are to disclose campaign finance information, to enforce the provisions of the law such as the limits and prohibitions on contributions, and to oversee the public funding of Presidential elections.”
So, a singular question becomes self-evident; what entity requires proof be filed of a candidate’s satisfaction of the constitutional requirements needed to become President of the United States?
In Marquis v. Reed, one of the eight lawsuits filed in an attempt to verify that Barack Obama is indeed eligible to hold the office of President of the United States, Steven Marquis takes a different tract than Berg. Marquis challenges the Washington State Secretary of State, Samuel Reed, to verify Obama’s eligibility.
In this lawsuit Marquis establishes:
“As we do not have a federal ballot per se, Washington State, through the office of the Washington State, Secretary of State creates its own ballot and supervises the same, electing electors to represent our choice for the Office of President...and presents a state question within this Court’s jurisdiction.”
Still, while establishing that the States, rather than the federal government, have jurisdiction over their individual election processes, it still doesn’t quest for the answer to the self-evident question of what entity requires proof be filed of a candidate’s satisfaction of the constitutional requirements needed to become President of the United States? Instead, it adds to the immediacy of the question and brings to the forefront a more refined question; is there an entity that verifies a candidate’s satisfaction of the requirements?
Examining the State of Illinois’ State Board of Elections Amended 2008 Candidate’s Guide, issued in May of 2008, it appears that the Illinois State Board of Elections doesn’t verify a candidate’s eligibility beyond requiring:
1) A Statement of Candidacy – This form (I use the FEC form as it encompasses everything in the Illinois form) requires each candidate to provide his name, address, party affiliation, office sought, the state and district of the contest, a designation of a principle campaign committee, the designation of other authorized committees and a declaration of intent to expend personal funds. Lastly, it requires a potential candidate to “attest” that he or she is “qualified for the office specified.” At no place in the official guide or paperwork is a birth certificate or other form of verification of natural born citizenship required.
2) A Loyalty Oath – Ironically, this is optional.
3) Receipt for filing a Statement of Economic Interests – This is not required for Federal Office or political party offices.
4) Completed Nominating Petitions – These petitions must be correctly filed out, notarized and contain a sufficient number of original signatures as set forth by the election commission.
Being familiar with the election process in Illinois, I then examined my country board of election’s requirements. Their requirements deferred to the requirements of the State of Illinois.
Again, the question remains, is there an entity – whether on a federal, state, county or municipal level – that verifies a candidate’s satisfaction of the requirements set forth by the US Constitution for holding the office of President of the United States?
In Judge Surrick’s ruling, he declared that Mr. Berg “lacked standing” to bring the lawsuit to the court. He stated that the harm cited by Berg was “too vague and its effects too attenuated to confer standing on any and all voters.” This ruling is a slap in the face to every citizen of the United States.
The U.S. Constitution begins with:
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
It does not begin with “We the Government...” or “We the Judiciary...” and for good reason. The United States government is empowered and created by We the People; the citizens. The U.S. Constitution belongs to the people not to the government. In fact, the Constitution was created to limit government’s ability to employ tyrannical governance. It is squarely within the citizen’s purview to protect and defend the US Constitution from enemies both foreign and domestic. This notion is called civic responsibility and it is our duty as citizens to pro-actively defend our Charters of Freedom. It is for this reason, among but a few more, that the Constitution is written in the First Person.
Barack Obama could defuse this situation by presenting his original vaulted birth certificate, thus satisfying his obligation to the American people to provide proof he meets the requirements for holding the office of President of the United States as set forth in Article II, Section 1. But I doubt he will. He has the luxury of having partisan judicial activists – tyrants – acting on his behalf, usurping the authority of the Constitution.
But the larger more serious Constitutional Crisis remains: it would appear we have no system in place for verifying a candidate’s eligibility for holding the office of President of the United States – or any other federal or state office for that matter. We have no system, but for relying on a partisan and politically hijacked Congress, for making sure that those running for elected office satisfy the requirements as set forth by those who loved our country enough to die for its creation.
This cannot stand.
Sen. Obama, stand and deliver! Answer the demand of the American people; those you say you so want to serve. Do the honorable thing and present your citizenship to the citizenry. Should you dare to be so arrogant as to dismiss the American people by usurping the Spirit of the U.S. Constitution, you will be solely responsible for the societal divide created by your inaction. You, Sen. Obama, will be solely responsible for bringing this Constitutional Crisis to bear.
We stand on the brink of a Second Great Civil War. Let’s see just how much Sen. Obama really loves our country.
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The Constitution makes clear that President is decided in an election every four years, and it makes clear that there are two legal requirements for a US President: that he be native born (born in the USA) and that he be over the age of 35.
However, it does not say who decides whether a person is native born or over the age of 35.
That being the case, you can assume that the Federal courts, and ultimately the Supreme Court, would ultimately decide. But it might not. The Supreme Court has repeatedly said that it only wants to get into such things if it has to. Most likely it will decide that ordinary citizens have no standing to sue, meaning that McCain must sue, and he will not.
And, in the extremely unlikely event the Supreme Court decides to take the case it almost certainly will be after the election, and if it found in your favor (which is extremely unlikely since there is no evidence), then at the most it would make Joe Biden president.
But there is another judge, a better judge: We the voters.
If Obama were proven to have been born outside the USA, then I assume that we would honor the Constitution and not vote for him.
Some, of course, would continue to vote for Biden, meaning for the Democratic ticket, on the assumption that the Supreme Court might get involved and the resolution would be to give the election to Biden.
But some of us would change our vote to McCain, or vote for Nader or Bob Barr (the Libertarian Party candidate), or not vote at all.
If this is what you desire, then you should bring your case before the American People, we the voters.
There is little time left. Today (Monday 27) there are eight days before the election, meaning that there are only seven days to present your evidence, since most of us have made up our minds by at least the night before the election. Of course, with early voting, some of us have made up our minds already. So time is pressing as far as you are concerned.
But do not imagine that we are fools. In other words, to make your case that Obama is not a native born citizen YOU have to make a case. You have to present your evidence.
It is not enough to say “why doesn’t he show his birth certificate?” He is busy, and people do lose their birth certificates. I have seen a photo on the Web of his certificate of live birth from the State of Hawaii, and, you know, no one in the government of the State of Hawaii has come forward to claim that that document has been forged.
In order to prove that he was born in Kenya, you really have to show some evidence that he was BORN in Kenya. An audio tape recording from someone who is said to be his paternal grandmother saying that she remembers that he was born in Kenya really doesn’t cut it. Why not? Because we do not know whether the voice on the tape is the real grandmother, it could be any Kenyan old lady. Or, even if it is the grandmother, she could be remembering wrong. It happens. So you will need both to substantiate that the tape is of the grandmother AND show something else.
You might produce records from the Kenyan immigration department showing that it checked in Obama’s mother into Kenya sometime before the birth. Or you could show a notice in a Kenyan newspaper. Or you could show a Kenyan birth certificate, or the record of a hospital. But without that, who will believe you???
Back four years ago, when John Kerry was running for president, a number of blogs made the claim that he really had not won the Silver Star. There was no proof, they said, even though the Navy substantiated the fact that he had won the Silver Star. “Why doesn’t he come forward and show the papers that confirm that he won the Silver Star” was asked at the time, and when that was not enough, it was alleged that he really did not win the Silver Star for bravery, but instead because he had pull among the brass in the Navy.
All of that rode on the question: “Why doesn’t he?”
The answer is that claims of this kind can be made forever. Sensible people understand the principle of the burden of proof. The burden of proof is on the people trying to disprove that he is a native-born US citizen.
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