More Craziness From Arizona: Right-Wingers Aim to Sabotage Obama's Run for Re-Election

The birthers have a plan to end Barack Obama's presidency -- and in Arizona, they're making progress.

Last week, Arizona state Rep. Judy Burges, a Republican, introduced a bill that would bar presidential candidates who do not prove they were born in the United States from appearing on the ballot in the Grand Canyon state. And state Rep. Chad Campbell, the top Democrat in the GOP-controlled Arizona House of Representatives, tells Mother Jones that the bill is likely to pass. It was introduced with 25 co-sponsors in the House and 16 co-sponsors in the state Senate; the measure needs 31 votes in the House and 16 in the Senate for approval. "Will it matter?" asks Campbell. "We've started a tradition here of passing legislation that is political grandstanding or that sets up litigation."

http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/149737/more_craziness_from_arizona%3A_right-wingers_aim_to_sabotage_obama%27s_run_for_re-election

They will lose.

States have quite a bit of control over their ballots, and the applicable laws actually do vary quite a bit. First, there's the matter of ballot access; some states make it very easy for a candidate (or party) to appear on the ballot, while others impose significant obstacles to overcome. New York, for one (maybe there are others), allows a candidate's name to appear on the line of more than one party. Some states have straight ticket voting, others don't. Some allow candidates who don't actually meet the requirements for office (e.g. a 28-year old Presidential candidate) to appear; others don't.

And maybe I'm forgetting something, but it seems to me that practically all the Constitution has to say about electing the President is the procedure the electors are to use and how the House is to proceed in case the Electoral College is unable to produce a result.

appear. States do not have the right to keep a major party candidate off the ballot. Interpretation of the eligibility language is left to Congress and the Federal courts - not individual states. It is a Federal election, so Federal law takes precedence over anything a state might want to do.

Sorry

Having said that, I enjoy watching the RW ass-hattery. I think it is funny, like real world keystone kops in action.

These people are idiots.

I mean, Obama could have a notarized statement from Ronald Reagan and Jesus Christ himself, notarized by Rupert Murdoch, saying he's a natural-born citizen of the U.S. ...

and they'd still claim it was fake ...

I had a FB argument with a guy who said that "no action was taken" by police during a spitting incident involving a Dem ... even when I linked to a FOX article about how the police DID take action (and the Dem refused to press charges), the guy still refused to acknowledge real reality.

Just where do they think this suit will end up?


All they are doing is costing the taxpayers of that state millions.

Because Roberts did NOT administer the Oath correctly the first time. What a Putz!

They cannot and will not accept it. It's as if their very existence depends on the fact that they are racially superior. Sure, they can dress up their racism by decrying Affirmative Action or demanding a birth certificate solely because the racial superiority argument is culturally unacceptable.

to get to CA. The more I see of the crop of R's coming out of AZ, the more I miss Goldwater. We rarely saw eye to eye on anything, but Goldwater was a straight shooter...when he called "bullshit", he was serious. He'd be appalled at what has become of his state, much less the GOP.

FWIW, Goldwater ran for president, but was born when AZ was still a territory, technically, he could run, but under what the current "Birthers" call "guidlines, one of their own would have been ineligible to run for the office.

the GOP in Arizona has turned into a living, breathing brainless amoeba of stupidity and hate. Hopefully in time, even that will wear out and people won't be able to muster the energy it takes to continually hate, and they'll learn to let go. At least bitter people don't have as long of lifespans as good-natured people... at least from the research I've read. The one thing in our favor.

:thumbsup:

n/t

And if the T-bag candidate they back can't provided it either?

He has a birth certificate. What's the big deal?

that Arizona can require proof of eligibility that would exclude constitutionally eligible candidates: for example, it is unlikely that every person born in the US has a birth certificate, and due to current state record-keeping practices it is certain that a number of persons born in the US do not have "long form" birth certificates (whatever Arizona means by that); and so Arizona surely cannot demand the exhibit of a birth certificate, let alone a "long form" birth certificate, as the only acceptable evidence of ballot eligibility

Assuming (again arguendo) that a state can require proof of ballot eligibility, the best that might prevail is that the state could demand proof by proponderance of the evidence, but for a man, already sworn once as President, holding a valid US passport showing him to be a born citizen, with a history of political service in elective offices which required his citizenship, and no obvious evidence of error, one might expect summary dismissal of any challenge to his eligibility

Whether a state can demand proof of eligibility, of course, might be questionable, since the constitution provides several layers of approval: the vote passes through the electoral college, and the 12th amendment provides if the President elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President elect shall act as President -- so that there is a method for bypassing an unqualified President elect

So, one might say: 1st, that Arizona had no authority whatsoever under the Constitution to do this, there being prescribed Constitutional criteria for proceeding in the case of an unqualified President elect; 2nd, that if Arizona were found to have authority to check ballot qualifications, the law in question must be discarded entirely, as excluding Constitutionally qualified persons by its demand for a birth certificate; 3rd, that if the law were discarded only in part, for excluding Constitutionally qualified persons by its demand for a birth certificate, that the substitute standard should then be proponderance of the evidence, on which basis Mr Obama surely deserves a summary judgment on his behalf, having been previously sworn as President in the presence of his political enemies &c&c; 4th, that if the requirement for a birth certificate were found to be acceptable, the law in question must still be discarded entirely, as excluding Constitutionally qualified persons by its demand for a "long form" birth certificate, a requirement that would eventually prevent most eligible persons from running for President, due to modern state record-keeping practices, most states not continuing to maintain such records; 5th, that if the requirement for a birth certificate were found to be acceptable, and the law in question were discarded only in part, with respect to a demand for a "long form" birth certificate, then that Mr Obama is perfectly able to produce a valid Hawaii birth certificate

In short, I do not anticipate that Mr Obama will face any meaningful stigma to ballot access from the Arizona nonsense law

But what IS a long-form birth certificate? How is it different from the normal kind?

Long forms, also known as certified photocopies, book copies, and photostat copies, are exact photocopies of the original birth record that was prepared by the hospital or attending physician at the time of the child's birth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_certificate#Long_forms

I, for example, have such a photocopy of mine, but the state in which I was born no longer offers such photocopies: if I want another copy of my birth certificate, what I can actually get is a computer-generated form showing the basic info, stamped with a state seal and signature to certify the accuracy of the info therein -- and I think most states have moved to such certified computer-generated forms. If Arizona is actually demanding photocopies of birth certificates, in order to qualify as a Presidential candidate, then the state is insisting that nobody born after a switch to electronic record keeping, and nobody (born before that switch) can appear as a Presidential candidate on the ballot in Arizona -- which would exclude almost everybody

2012 might turn out to be a humdinger of an election.

..."original, long-form" birth certificate, and is unable to do so, because he doesn't have his, either.

:sarcasm: <---- would be nice if I did not need to write this!

ELECTION, based on the discretion of a State Attorney
General from an opposing party should have it's electoral
votes discounted. This is unconstitutional voter suppression.

So fuck em.