From: Steve Davies (Steve365@btinternet.com)
Date: Thu Aug 07 2003 - 11:09:58 MDT
>
>On Thursday, August 7, 2003, at 10:23 AM, John K Clark wrote:
>
>>> "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."
>>
>> Brett Paatsch" <bpaatsch@bigpond.net.au>
>>
>>> So on my reading, (and contrary to what I thought I knew),
>>> if Arnie is a US citizen and has been a resident for 14 years
>>> he is not precluded.
>>
>> Huh? It says nobody born outside the USA can become president unless
>> he was
>> naturalized when the constitution was adopted, is older than 35, and
>> lived
>> in the USA for at least 14 years. Arnold was not born in the USA, so
>> unless
>> he's about 200 years old and was naturalized when the constitution was
>> adopted he can't be president.
>
>If they meant "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",
>why didn't they say that? Basically, Brett is saying that it might be a
>valid rewording to say:
>When this Constiution is adopted, no person except a natural born
>citizen
>or a citizen of the United States shall be eligible to the office of
>President [...]
>
>In an otherwise admirably terse document, why add a comma in the middle
>of
>a phrase, if not to clarify that two phrases are intended? :)
>
>--
>Randall Randall <randall@randallsquared.com>
>"Not only can money buy happiness,
> it isn't even particularly expensive any more." -- Spike Jones
I can see how this is ambiguous, given the comma after "United States".
(Notice the distinction between "natural born citizen" - of one of the
States presumably - and "citizen of the United States"). Has this ever been
tested? I'm thinking we could palm T. Blair off onto you.
Steve Davies
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