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How long can Supremes avoid eligibility?
Newest challenge set for conference in days
WND
Bob Unruh
6/2/2012
Excerpt:
"The U.S. Supreme Court justices may be trying to avoid the eligibility issue, as Justice Clarence Thomas apparently confirmed. But no matter, try as they might, it appears that it’s not going away.
The newest case to be scheduled for conference before the high court is Alan Keyes and Wiley Drake v. Obama. The case was launched on the day of Obama’s inauguration in 2009 and has been advancing ever since.
Conferences are meetings at which justices determine which cases they will take and review. Every other eligibility case that has been brought to the U.S. Supreme Court has died by this point, without support from enough justices to move it forward.
But even if that happens again, there are other cases already developing that could end up facing the judges.
The case at hand asks the justices to settle the question of eligibility, or else “there remains a question as to whether absurd results may occur.”
Gary Kreep of the United States Justice Foundation is arguing the case.
“Arnold Schwarzenegger is well known as having been born in Austria. If there are no means of compelling verification of a presidential candidate’s birth status, Mr. Schwarzenegger could run for, and be elected, president. … If the Libertarian Party were to nominate the late Ayn Rand as their candidate for president, could she be removed from the ballot on the grounds that she is not a natural born citizen of the United States?” his asserts.
The petition was filed on behalf of Keyes and Drake, candidates on the 2008 ballot for president and vice president, and Markham Robinson, an elector for the state of California in 2008.
As candidates during 2008, Keyes and Drake “had an interest in having a fair competition for those positions. This interest is akin to the interest of an Olympic competition, where one of the competitors in an athletic competition is found to be using performance enhancing drugs, but is not removed.”
The case explains that in such cases, “all of the athletes who had trained for the event legitimately are harmed if that disqualified contestant remains, as the contestants would not be competing on a level playing field.”
“Obama entered this race without having met the eligibility requirements for the office of president of the United States, and, as a result, Keyes and Drake have been injured, because they did not have fair competition for the office.”
To the government argument that third-party candidates really aren’t hurt because they couldn’t win anyway, Kreep writes: “Does the law, therefore, provide opportunities for, and encourage, majority party presidential candidates to skirt, or ignore, election rules and laws, since, according to respondents, third party presidential challenges would never have standing to challenge?
“Such a result would never be acceptable in the jurisprudence of this court,” he says.
And, Kreep noted, third-party candidates have included H. Ross Perot and George Wallace, who had an impact on the general election.
“The injury suffered here … is the denial of the right of all candidates to have a level playing field. … This simply means that all candidates running for the office must be eligible for the office,” the appeal says.
“The injury here is not that some candidates … were prevented from winning … but that these candidates were denied a fair opportunity to run for the office, because their competition was disqualified from the outset.
“Whether a candidate can win a race for an office is irrelevant to the question of whether the election is fair.”
The appeal notes there already is precedent in the U.S. for removing an elected chief executive who is ineligible.
That happened in North Dakota, where Gov. Thomas H. Moodie was elected but later found to be ineligible because of residency requirements.
He was removed from office and replaced by the lieutenant governor.
And whether Obama has committed impeachable offenses also is not an issue, since only a legitimate president can be impeached, the appeal argues.
The petition argues that while Congress approves the Electoral College balloting, the law “does not directly address any eligibility issues.”
The provisions of the Constitution, that the president be a “natural born citizen,” also cannot be changed by means of a popular vote, the brief argues.
The origins of the case come from the day of Obama’s inauguration, when he flubbed the oath of office and the White House reported he retook it in private later.
The 9th Circuit earlier rejected the claim, although the panel of judges, Harry Pregerson, Ray Fisher and Marsha Berzon, explained a concept called “competitive standing” is a valid argument."
..................................
View the complete article at:
http://www.wnd.com/2012/06/how-long-...y/?cat_orig=us
Newest challenge set for conference in days
WND
Bob Unruh
6/2/2012
Excerpt:
"The U.S. Supreme Court justices may be trying to avoid the eligibility issue, as Justice Clarence Thomas apparently confirmed. But no matter, try as they might, it appears that it’s not going away.
The newest case to be scheduled for conference before the high court is Alan Keyes and Wiley Drake v. Obama. The case was launched on the day of Obama’s inauguration in 2009 and has been advancing ever since.
Conferences are meetings at which justices determine which cases they will take and review. Every other eligibility case that has been brought to the U.S. Supreme Court has died by this point, without support from enough justices to move it forward.
But even if that happens again, there are other cases already developing that could end up facing the judges.
The case at hand asks the justices to settle the question of eligibility, or else “there remains a question as to whether absurd results may occur.”
Gary Kreep of the United States Justice Foundation is arguing the case.
“Arnold Schwarzenegger is well known as having been born in Austria. If there are no means of compelling verification of a presidential candidate’s birth status, Mr. Schwarzenegger could run for, and be elected, president. … If the Libertarian Party were to nominate the late Ayn Rand as their candidate for president, could she be removed from the ballot on the grounds that she is not a natural born citizen of the United States?” his asserts.
The petition was filed on behalf of Keyes and Drake, candidates on the 2008 ballot for president and vice president, and Markham Robinson, an elector for the state of California in 2008.
As candidates during 2008, Keyes and Drake “had an interest in having a fair competition for those positions. This interest is akin to the interest of an Olympic competition, where one of the competitors in an athletic competition is found to be using performance enhancing drugs, but is not removed.”
The case explains that in such cases, “all of the athletes who had trained for the event legitimately are harmed if that disqualified contestant remains, as the contestants would not be competing on a level playing field.”
“Obama entered this race without having met the eligibility requirements for the office of president of the United States, and, as a result, Keyes and Drake have been injured, because they did not have fair competition for the office.”
To the government argument that third-party candidates really aren’t hurt because they couldn’t win anyway, Kreep writes: “Does the law, therefore, provide opportunities for, and encourage, majority party presidential candidates to skirt, or ignore, election rules and laws, since, according to respondents, third party presidential challenges would never have standing to challenge?
“Such a result would never be acceptable in the jurisprudence of this court,” he says.
And, Kreep noted, third-party candidates have included H. Ross Perot and George Wallace, who had an impact on the general election.
“The injury suffered here … is the denial of the right of all candidates to have a level playing field. … This simply means that all candidates running for the office must be eligible for the office,” the appeal says.
“The injury here is not that some candidates … were prevented from winning … but that these candidates were denied a fair opportunity to run for the office, because their competition was disqualified from the outset.
“Whether a candidate can win a race for an office is irrelevant to the question of whether the election is fair.”
The appeal notes there already is precedent in the U.S. for removing an elected chief executive who is ineligible.
That happened in North Dakota, where Gov. Thomas H. Moodie was elected but later found to be ineligible because of residency requirements.
He was removed from office and replaced by the lieutenant governor.
And whether Obama has committed impeachable offenses also is not an issue, since only a legitimate president can be impeached, the appeal argues.
The petition argues that while Congress approves the Electoral College balloting, the law “does not directly address any eligibility issues.”
The provisions of the Constitution, that the president be a “natural born citizen,” also cannot be changed by means of a popular vote, the brief argues.
The origins of the case come from the day of Obama’s inauguration, when he flubbed the oath of office and the White House reported he retook it in private later.
The 9th Circuit earlier rejected the claim, although the panel of judges, Harry Pregerson, Ray Fisher and Marsha Berzon, explained a concept called “competitive standing” is a valid argument."
..................................
View the complete article at:
http://www.wnd.com/2012/06/how-long-...y/?cat_orig=us