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Paul R. Hollrah, O.E.
The Obama Eligibility Question Lives On
March 2, 2010

Beyond surviving the current political madness in Washington, the American people have no greater task ahead than to insure themselves that another Barack Hussein Obama can never again hold political power in our country.

When the Founding Fathers met in Philadelphia in September 1787 to sign the final draft of the U.S. Constitution, the physical scars of the War of Independence from Great Britain were still visible all around them and a deep-seated animosity toward all things British colored every aspect of their daily lives. So is it even remotely conceivable that just five years and eleven months after the British surrendered at Yorktown, the Founders would have presented to the states for ratification a Constitution that would allow an individual with divided loyalties – e.g., an individual with dual US-British citizenship – to serve as president or vice president of the United States? It is not, and they did not.

In order to forestall that eventuality the Framers included a provision...Article II, Section 4...requiring that candidates for president and vice president be at least thirty five years of age, that they have been a resident of the United States for at least 14 years, and that they be natural born U.S. citizens, owing allegiance to no foreign power because of the circumstances of birth.

Expressing the prevailing concerns of the time, Alexander Hamilton wrote in the Federalist Papers, "These most deadly adversaries of republican government (cabal, intrigue, etc.) might actually have expected to make their approach from more than one quarter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils. How could they better gratify this than by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union?”

In recent columns we have discussed the controlling legal authority, under U.S., British, and Kenyan law, necessary to determine Barack Obama’s eligibility to serve as President of the United States.

If we can agree that Obama’s father, a citizen of Kenya, then a British colony, was a British subject at the time of his birth, a fact that Obama himself has attested to on numerous occasions, it is evident that, under Part 2, Section 5[1] of the British Nationality Act of 1948, Obama was born with automatic British citizenship "by decent” from his father. Thus, it is an inescapable fact that Obama held dual US-British citizenship from the date of his birth, August 4, 1961, until December 12, 1963, the day that Kenya won its independence from Great Britain.

However, Article VI, Section 87[3](2) of the Kenyan Constitution states that "Every person who, having been born outside Kenya, is on 11th December, 1963 a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies (Obama Jr.), or a British protected person, shall, if his father becomes, or would but for his death have become a citizen of Kenya by virtue of subsection (1), become a citizen of Kenya on 12th December, 1963.”

Therefore, setting aside the possibility that Obama MAY HAVE acquired Indonesian citizenship when his mother married Indonesian Lolo Soetoro and moved to Jakarta in 1967, it is clear that Obama held dual US-Kenyan citizenship from December 12, 1963, the date of Kenyan independence, until at least his 21st birthday on August 4, 1982, when he claims to have been a student at Columbia University in New York.

In either event, Barack Obama is clearly not a "natural born” U.S. citizens and is, therefore, ineligible to serve in the office he occupies. So how did we manage to get ourselves into this mess? Three successive systemic failures combined to provide us with a usurper president.

The first failure occurred in Denver, Colorado during the last week of August 2008 when Democrats met to nominate candidates for president and vice president. The delegates to that convention had an obligation to put before the American people fully qualified candidates for our nation’s two highest offices. They did not live up to that responsibility. Instead, they certified to the states a candidate for president who was, and is, ineligible to serve in that office.

The second failure occurred on December 15, 2008 when the Electoral College met to elect a president and vice president. In Federalist Paper No. 68, Alexander Hamilton referred to the "investigation” necessary to the selection of a president and vice president. In describing the duties of the Electoral College, he said, "A small number of persons, selected by their fellow citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to so complicated an investigation.”

Although the Democratic members of the 2008 Electoral College were forewarned that Obama may not possess the necessary qualifications, they were apparently so anxious to regain control of the White House that they simply ignored their constitutional obligation to select a candidate who was fully qualified to serve.

The third and final failure occurred on January 8, 2009 when the Congress met in joint session to certify the vote of the Electoral College. As the final and failsafe step in the electoral process, the Congress had the duty to insure themselves of the qualifications of Barack Obama and Joe Biden...which they failed to do.

So where does this leave us? Obama Kool-Ade drinkers, and Democrats in general, are blithely dismissive. Their view is that the people have spoken; they went to the polls and voted, so that’s it...leave it alone. Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution be damned. But that cannot be the case.

In a December 8, 2008 discussion of the congressional certification process, Dr. Edwin Viera, Jr., Ph.D., J.D., a leading authority on the Constitution, argues that, "...the question of Obama’s eligibility vel non is not within the discretion of Congress to skirt or decide as its Members may deem politically or personally expedient.

"Even by unanimous vote, Congress cannot constitutionally dispense with the requirement that Obama must be ‘a natural born Citizen,’ by simply assuming that he is such, or by accepting something other than what lawyers call ‘the best evidence.’ ” (e.g. Obama’s published certificate of live birth, versus a certified Hawaiian birth certificate)

Dr. Viera argues that, if no objection is made on the basis that Obama is not a natural born citizen (in which case an Elector cannot constitutionally vote for him)...the matter cannot be said to have been settled to a "constitutional sufficiency (emphasis added),” because Congress has no power to simply waive the Constitution’s eligibility requirement...

This leaves us with the question, if the Congress acts irresponsibly, indifferently, or not at all, is the issue foreclosed forever? Not at all. Instead, Dr. Viera suggests that the time will come when the Justice Department will attempt to enforce, through criminal prosecutions, some of the controversial legislation that the new Congress will enact and Obama will sign into law. Then, "as a matter of undeniable constitutional right and practical necessity,” a class of litigants with absolute standing will come into existence.

With Obama occupying the Oval Office, that day has already arrived. We need only to await the courageous individual(s) who will stand on principle, demanding that the laws they are required to obey were signed into law by a president eligible to do so...that they are, in fact, the law of the land.

Above all, the American people must understand what it means to simply ignore Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution...for no better reason than that it would be incredibly messy to remove Obama at this late date. For one to take that position, one must then also be willing to cavalierly set aside other provisions of the Constitution, such as the 1st Amendment rights to religious freedom, free speech, a free press, and the freedom of assembly; the 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms; the 4th Amendment protections against illegal search and seizure; the 5th Amendment rights against self-incrimination; and the 7th Amendment right to trial by jury.

Are we to question citizenship rights for African Americans under the 14th Amendment, black voting rights under the 15th Amendment, women’s voting rights under the 19th Amendment, or the eighteen-year-old vote under the 26th Amendment? And how about presidential election voting rights for District of Columbia residents, guaranteed under the 23rd Amendment?

It is safe to assume that, among these latter groups...blacks, women, 18-20 year-olds, and DC residents...there are a substantial number of Obama voters. Are they truly serious about simply ignoring Article II, Section 4, while demanding that we hold fast to everything else in the Constitution? Would they have their cake and eat it too?

The United States Constitution means exactly what it says...nothing more, nothing less...and if we expect to reap the benefits of its many rights and freedoms we cannot allow the document to be selectively enforced. Stay tuned, America.


About Paul R. Hollrah, O.E.
Paul R. Hollrah is a freelance writer. He is a member of the Civil Engineering Academy of Distinguished Alumni at the University of Missouri - Columbia and a Senior Fellow at the Lincoln Heritage Institute. He currently resides in Tulsa, Oklahoma.