Legal debate still surrounds McCain's birth in the Panama Canal Zone
WASHINGTON BUREAU
Saturday, July 05, 2008
WASHINGTON — Is Sen. John McCain a natural born citizen? Or is he ineligible to be president?
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee was born Aug. 29, 1936 — not within the 50 United States, but in the Panama Canal Zone, where his father, a Navy officer, was stationed.
His birth location has revived a long-standing debate over the constitutional requirement that limits the presidency to "natural born" citizens.
The problem is that the framers never defined the term.
At least two lawsuits filed in federal court claim that McCain's birthplace disqualifies him from becoming president. The issue has been simmering in the blogosphere for months, including discussions on prestigious legal forums. A Google search for "John McCain" and "natural born citizen" yields 57,000 hits.
McCain's campaign advisers say they are not worried. The campaign commissioned prominent scholars from the political left and right to research the question and say they are confident that the senator from Arizona qualifies for the nation's highest office.
His Democratic rival, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, agrees. So does the U.S. Senate, which passed a nonbinding resolution declaring that McCain is a natural born citizen, constitutionally eligible to run for president.
Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, said the question of McCain's eligibility is a serious one.
"It is not clear whether a Panamanian-born citizen is a natural born citizen," Turley said. "The meaning of the term 'natural born' is unresolved."
One of the issues in question is whether the Panama Canal Zone was part of the United States at the time of McCain's birth.
Turley said that military installations, such as the one in Panama, were sitting on leased land and were never part of U.S. soil.
However, Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe and former Solicitor General Theodore Olson, who examined the issue for the McCain campaign, said there is "substantial legal support" — including a 1986 Supreme Court opinion — that the United States "exercised sovereignty" over the Panama Canal Zone.
They also concluded that McCain was a natural born citizen because his parents were American citizens and that the framers never intended to exclude children of military officers serving outside of the continental United States from the presidency.
Federal law defines a natural born citizen in various ways, including one that clearly includes children of military officers overseas.
The issue has come up several times. Charles Curtis, who served as Herbert Hoover's vice president, was born in Kansas in 1860, a year before Kansas became a state.
Some voters said Chester Arthur might be ineligible for president because it was rumored he was born in Canada, but he became the nation's 21st commander in chief anyway, listing his birthplace as Vermont.
A few prominent presidential candidates who were never elected faced similar questions.
Barry Goldwater, the Republican nominee in 1964, was born in the territory of Arizona three years before it achieved statehood in 1912. George Romney, the father of Mitt Romney, ran for president in 1968 even although he was born in Mexico. Former Sen. Lowell Weicker of Connecticut, who ran for the Republican nomination in 1980, was born in Paris.
Turley said such questions will continue if the matter is not resolved by a constitutional amendment allowing all citizens to be eligible for the presidency, regardless of birthplace.
"The requirement that you be a natural born citizen is distinctly un-American," he said.
Granting eligibility to naturalized citizens would open the door to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was born in Austria; Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who was born in Vancouver, British Columbia; and Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida, who was born in Cuba.
John McCain: A 'natural born' citizen?
Not qualified: At least two lawsuits have been filed in federal court saying McCain is not a 'natural born' citizen, a constitutional requirement for the presidency, because he wasn't born in one of the 50 United States.
Qualified: Many legal scholars cite evidence that the United States had sovereignty over the Panama Canal Zone in 1936, when McCain was born. They also say other factors cement his qualifications, including that his parents were U.S. citizens and his father was serving in the military at the time of McCain's birth.
Who is a natural born American?
The Founding Fathers never defined what it means to be a natural born American citizen. Federal law defines several instances in which a person qualifies. They include:
Anyone born inside the United States.
Any Indian, Eskimo Aleutian, or member of another aboriginal tribe born in the United States, provided being a citizen of the United States does not impair the person's right to tribal or other property.
Anyone born in a U.S. possession, if one parent is a citizen and lived in the U.S. for at least one year.
Anyone born outside the United States, as long as one parent is a U.S. citizen who lived in the United States for at least five years, with military or diplomatic service included in that time.
Anyone found in the United States, under the age of 5, whose parentage cannot be determined, as long as proof of non-citizenship is not provided by age 21.
