To the bold, you say this, but do you know this?  I don't.  As to the appropriate agency, it's my understanding (not really confirmed) that the Secretaries of State of the 50 states determine eligibility for placement on their state's ballot.  So, the Secretary of State of NC, for example, would have to review the Constitutional qualifications for each Presidential candidate.  This is what interests me, the process - not some sort of hysteria about President Obama.  What does the Sec. of State for NC require?  What did they review?  Are these requirements uniform across the states? I would suspect they are not.  That seems odd in a way that has nothing to do with President Obama.  I don't know anything about news articles, interviews with doctors or anything involving the "was he" or wasn't he" because I assume the process worked.  However, when people start saying the process worked because there is a process, like you did - that starts to raise questions for me.

So, to me, this becomes interesting from the process standpoint.  My less than wikipedia-level understanding of one of the birther lawsuits from NJ involved their Secretary of State's review of the qualifications.  The allegations was that the review was cursory, at best.  I don't have the details, but that is interesting.  Make a FOIA request for the documents reviewed by the Secretary of State, for all candidates, and see what they saw.  Was there something different about Pres. Obama's submission?  I don't know.

So, to answer your questions, I haven't seen what President Obama submitted or Sen. McCain so I don't know if it was "good enough," more/less than Sen. McCain or that President Obama would have to go above and beyond.  Obviously, the Secretaries of State put President Obama on the ballot - so it was good enough for them.  Of course, those types of decisions would be reviewable by a Court.

hold on now there is some truth to that article...

"Gas prices may rise"   but other than that??  Meh

I still don't understand why it matters where he was born. His mother is American. So, he's American. Even if he was born in Kenya. Even if he was born of Mars.

It boggles my mind that this is even an issue.

How do you define "natural born citizen?"

"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."

And this (from here): Currently, Title 8 of the U.S. Code fills in the gaps left by the Constitution. Section 1401 defines the following as people who are "citizens of the United States at birth:"

• Anyone born inside the United States *
• Any Indian or Eskimo born in the United States, provided being a citizen of the U.S. does not impair the person's status as a citizen of the tribe
• Any one born outside the United States, both of whose parents are citizens of the U.S., as long as one parent has lived in the U.S.
• Any one born outside the United States, if one parent is a citizen and lived in the U.S. for at least one year and the other parent is a U.S. national
• Any one born in a U.S. possession, if one parent is a citizen and lived in the U.S. for at least one year
• Any one found in the U.S. under the age of five, whose parentage cannot be determined, as long as proof of non-citizenship is not provided by age 21
• Any one born outside the United States, if one parent is an alien and as long as the other parent is a citizen of the U.S. who lived in the U.S. for at least five years (with military and diplomatic service included in this time)
• A final, historical condition: a person born before 5/24/1934 of an alien father and a U.S. citizen mother who has lived in the U.S.

Seems pretty clear to me. This is what I've always assumed was the case, going back to high school civics class.

He meets the citizenship requirements.

What am I missing?

dontracy - 2011-04-28 9:55 AM Can someone explain the meaning of "natural born citizen"?
I really don't fully understand it,
and it seems to be at the heart of this whole birther thing.

My understanding,
and I could be wrong,
and I even hope I'm wrong,
is that to be a "natural born citizen",
one must both be born on US soil, 
and both parents must be US citizens at the time of your birth. 

It that's the correct definition,
it's different than just being born a US citizen.

One birther website I read claims that Chester Arthur was not a natural born citizen
because his father was Canadian at the time of his birth (dang Canadians again).
They also make a claim to evidence that Arthur tried to conceal this when he first ran for
the vice presidency. 

I don't know. I'm not a conspiracy theorist by nature.

If that definition of "natural born citizen" is correct,
it would also mean that John McCain is not a "natural born citizen",
having not been born on US soil,
nor are, I think, Bobby Jindal or Marco Rubio,
because of their parent's status as US citizens at the time of their birth.

I would agree that the time has long since passed when the status of one's parents 
at the time of their birth ought to matter.

At the same time, the constitution is the constitution.
If there's something in it that needs to be amended,
then I'm all for that process.

So putting conspiracies,
accusations of racism, 
and political partisanship aside,
what's the meaning of "natural born citizen in the constitution?

Here's what it says in the US Constitution Article 2 Section 1:
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.

You all are the smartest group of people I know,
so help me out here.

Andrew Jackson (1829-1837) is the only president born of two immigrants, both Irish.

Presidents with one immigrant parent are:

Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809), whose mother was born in England

James Buchanan (1857-1861) and Chester Arthur (1881-1885), both of whom had Irish fathers,

and Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921) and Herbert Hoover (1929-1933), whose mothers were born respectively in England and Canada.

If "natural born citizen" issues are this major, then we have now had 7 illigitimate presidents because of their parents.

Mind your beeswax.  We're turning this one up to eleven.

I don't know.  Like I said before, I really don't know that factual background of Pres. Obama's parents.  Which one applies to President Obama if he were born on Mars? 

Please, try to keep up.

She was born in my city... maybe I can dig up the records for everyone.

crusevegas - 2011-04-28 10:08 AM

UWMadTri - 2011-04-28 8:06 AM Look, the guy is a citizen of the United States. Can you please stop giving this any more credence than has already been given to it for the past 3 years?

Oh come on, some of are enjoying the show,,,,, pass the popcorn please.

I'd be glad to, but in Soviet Wisconsin, popcorn passes you.

Reading the statute, if President Obama was born on Mars, his mother's U.S. citizenship is not enough.  Correct?

• United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898): In this case, the majority of the Court held that a child born in U.S. territory to parents who were subjects of the emperor of China and who were not eligible for U.S. citizenship, but who had "a permanent domicile and residence in the United States, and are there carrying on business, and are not employed in any diplomatic or official capacity under the emperor of China" was a U.S. Citizen.

The Court stated that:

The constitution nowhere defines the meaning of these words [citizen and natural born citizen], either by way of inclusion or of exclusion, except in so far as this is done by the affirmative declaration that 'all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.'^[9]

Since the Constitution does not specify what the requirements are to be a "citizen" or a "natural born citizen", the majority adopted the common law of England:

The court ruled:

It thus clearly appears that by the law of England for the last three centuries, beginning before the settlement of this country, and continuing to the present day, aliens, while residing in the dominions possessed by the crown of England, were within the allegiance, the obedience, the faith or loyalty, the protection, the power, and the jurisdiction of the English sovereign; and therefore every child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject, unless the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a foreign state, or of an alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the child was born. III. The same rule was in force in all the English colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the constitution as originally established.

And more recently.

A memorandum to Congress dated April 3, 2009, written by the Congressional Research Service, states--

Considering the history of the constitutional qualifications provision, the common use and meaning of the phrase "natural-born subject" in England and in the Colonies in the 1700s, the clause's apparent intent, the subsequent action of the first Congress in enacting the Naturalization Act of 1790 (expressly defining the term "natural born citizen" to include a person born abroad to parents who are United States citizens), as well as subsequent Supreme Court dicta, it appears that the most logical inferences would indicate that the phrase "natural born Citizen" would mean a person who is entitled to U.S. citizenship "at birth" or "by birth".^[17]