09-24-2003, 03:04 PM
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#9 (permalink)
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Loser
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Okay, here we go.
Quote:
WASHINGTON -- Sen. Orrin Hatch wants to terminate the constitutional prohibition against foreign-born citizens such as Arnold Schwarzenegger and others from becoming president.
Article II of the Constitution says that, "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."
Hatch is seeking to amend the Constitution to remove the ban, allowing anyone who has been a citizen of the United States for two decades to run for the country's highest office.
"This restriction has become an anachronism that is decidedly un-American," Hatch, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and one-time presidential candidate, said when he introduced the change last week.
But retired University of Alabama history professor Forrest McDonald said the prohibition made sense when it was included in the Constitution "and I'm not sure the reasoning is entirely outdated."
He said that 15 years before the Constitution was written, foreign operatives from Russia, Prussia and Austria conspired to get a favorable monarch elected to lead Poland. Once in place, the country was divided up among the three powers.
"The American Fathers were acutely sensitive to the prospect," McDonald said. He said it is unlikely, although not inconceivable, that something like that could happen today.
His other argument against the amendment: Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The "Terminator" star has been flirting with running as a Republican for governor of California, and with money, charisma and name recognition could make a strong candidate for president -- but he was born in Austria.
"I'm scared of the man," McDonald said.
Hatch spokeswoman Margarita Tapia said the bill wasn't crafted to help Schwarzenegger.
"It was a policy judgment. It wasn't associated with a particular individual," she said.
Arkansas Rep. Vic Snyder, a Democrat, is sponsoring a similar version in the House that would require foreign-born citizens to wait 35 years before becoming president. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., sponsored a constitutional amendment during the last Congress, but it didn't make it through the House Judiciary Committee.
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And I'd just like to point out that, if the candidate follows the Libertarian Party platform, I don't really care if they're from Mars. (Hey, maybe they know it works on Mars.) |
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