From: Brett Paatsch (bpaatsch@bigpond.net.au)
Date: Thu Aug 07 2003 - 12:24:31 MDT
Steve Davies writes:
> >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.
And if he needs a vice presidential running mate Australia's own
J. Winston How-high? might consider retiring and immigrating.
Seriously, the practical difficulty of getting the ambiguity resolved in
the Supreme Court is likely to mean that in practice no one is likely
to bother to test it. So imo, in practice, it way as well say that one
absolutely has to be born in the USA. (And not by caesarean
like MacBeth ;-)
Regards,
Brett
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