State Senator Kent Sorenson has introduced a bill in the Iowa Senate that would require candidates for President to provide a birth certificate, according to a new item at the Iowa Independent.
The Bill, SF 368 is not your usual “birther bill” since it doesn’t get tangled up in “long forms” and “name of hospital.” The specific requirement is simply:
A candidate for president or vice president shall attach to and file with the affidavit of candidacy a copy of the candidate’s birth certificate certified by the appropriate official in the candidate’s state of birth.
Excellent – I hope it becomes a law! I’d like to see a sane (read: Constitutional) birhter bill and a full Orly bill become law before the 2012 elections – one that will be satisfied by the COLB and one that will go down in flames in the courts…
Well, that law would have eliminated John McCain from the get go.
oddly, I do not believe I have seen in any of these birther bills the ‘other’ constitutional requirement for Presidential eligibility – 14 years residency. How are candidates supposed to provide acceptable proof of this, and is there a federal standard by which all states can base their requirements?
Some people born in the US just don’t have birth certificates. I believe these cases are rare, but it is possible to get a US passport with no birth certificate, if you present enough other evidence, as detailed here.
It seems unlikely that the case of a candidate with no birth certificate would arise, but if it did I’d expect such a candidate could successfully challenge this law.
The law is also based on the assumption that individuals who are born abroad to US Citizen parents (like McCain) cannot qualify to be President, since they would not have a birth certificate from a “state”. Come to think of it, American citizens born in D.C. or a US territory or commonwealth would have similar problems.
The Iowa statute could be saved with additional language, beginning with the words “or such other documentation ….” — but the point is that the US Constitution does NOT require a birth certificate of any candidate. it requires a birth status, which is typically evidenced by such a certificate — but if the status can be demonstrated by other means, the candidate is Constitutionally qualified to be President.
Given the recent decision in Illinois in the Emanuel case, that could get fairly complicated.
Great news! I just wish our Hawaii legislature had passed that bill upping the fee for Obama’s COLB to $100 a pop! We can use the money! Birther heads will explode if this passes.
How refreshing — a sane legislative proposal.
Was Doc predicting the success of a birther bill?
OK, I’m going WAY OUT ON A LIMB this year with my predictions for 2011.
1. A copy of Barack Obama’s original Birth Certificate will be released to the public
2. The Birth Certificate will show the President was born at the Kapi’olani Maternity and Gynecological hospital
3. The Birth Certificate will show the attending physician was Dr. Rodney T. West
I think that at least one or two birther bills will get passed and will either A) receive a shiny new copy of the COLB or B) go down in flames in the courts. While I agree with your last two points, I don’t think the public will have the opportunity to see a photocopy of the original until President Obama’s library opens in around a decade…
Those were all Doc’s predictions pasted from the first of the year.
Sorry – I get new comments emailed to me and sometimes it’s hard to tell what was said and what was quoted without the formatting…
Just wondering, but after reading the bill it doesn’t seem to allow for things like a State Department Consular Report of Birth Abroad, like the following:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/erikrasmussen/3654002961/
I suppose that the Iowa bill is taking the position that an American citizen born abroad is not eligible to be President. That is a minority position among authorities, but an issue that is not as settled as the case of those born in the United States.