Sacramento has a bit role in a presidential drama, with an important constitutional lesson.
The United States Constitution says that "No person except a natural born citizen … shall be eligible to the office of President ..." This page has long called this provision "an anachronism that discriminates against far too many Americans." But Article II, Section 1 is still there, and it continues to provide grist for challenges.
To wit: Vacaville resident Markham Robinson, a member of the American Independent Party, filed a case in U.S. District Court in Sacramento in August, trying to claim that Republican candidate John McCain was not a "natural born citizen" because he was born at Coco Solo Air Base in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936. His father was in the U.S. Navy. Judge William Alsop dismissed that case in September.
But that didn't stop Robinson. He, and perennial candidate Alan Keyes, filed a case in Superior Court in Sacramento Nov. 13 aiming to stop California Secretary of State Debra Bowen from certifying the state's presidential election returns – this time claiming that President-elect Barack Obama is not a "natural born citizen."
Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961. The Hawaii Department of Health has verified that it has his "original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures." But that's not stopping Robinson and Keyes from trying to cast doubt that Obama may be a citizen of Indonesia, Kenya or Great Britain.
This all could be scoffed at as mere silliness, except that there's a real issue at stake involving naturalized citizens and the presidency.
In every respect but eligibility for the presidency, natural born citizens are equal to "naturalized citizens," people who are born outside the United States whose parents are not citizens but who can apply voluntarily for citizenship later in life. But this one clause renders the nation's 12.8 million naturalized citizens second-class citizens. One of them is Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. He was born in Austria, came to the United States in 1968 and became a naturalized citizen in 1983.
The idea of amending the Constitution to make naturalized citizens eligible for the presidency has been introduced more than two dozen times since the 1870s – most recently by Republicans Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah and Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California. Half-baked lawsuits aside, it's long past time for such a change – making natural-born and naturalized citizens truly equal in this country.
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