Some Georgia residents are challenging President Barack Obama’s status on the ballot with the help of State Rep. Mark Hatfield (R-Waycross), who pushed a measure during the most recent session to require presidential candidates to present their long-form birth certificate:
Five Georgia men have challenged President Barack Obama’s inclusion on next year’s presidential ballot, with at least some citing an oft-discredited theory that Obama is not eligible for office because the Constitution says that a president must be a “natural born citizen.”
All the challenges have been made through the Georgia Office of the Secretary of State, which referred them to the state administrative hearings office. Hearings have not yet been set.
Georgia holds its primary next year on March 6. Obama’s name will appear on the Democratic primary ballot, even though he has no challengers.
Two of the men filing the challenges, Kevin Powell of Duluth and Carl Swensson of Morrow, are being represented in their efforts by attorney Mark Hatfield, who is also a Republican state lawmaker from Waycross.
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Obama was born in Hawaii to an American mother and Kenyan father.Hatfield has said he believes the United States’ founders intended not only for presidents to be born in the U.S. but for their parents to also have been U.S. citizens.
Sigh. I thought we were done with this crap. By this interpretation of the requirements for the presidency, none of the Founding Fathers — including Washington, Adams or Jefferson — would have been able to qualify. After all, they were all British-born subjects whose parents held British citizenship.
I like Hatfield on a personal level, but he has crossed a line here. Word is he’ll have a couple of opponents in the primary next year. I just may send some money to one (or both) of them.
The trivial has become the substaintial in the minds of some. This is an insult to the intelligence of the electorate who require more representation than this!
Well said.