Connect with us

Constitution

Obama eligibility and judicial embarrassment

Published

on

The Constitution, which sets forth the principle of rule of law, defines what is unconstitutional, and guarantees freedom of speech and other liberties of a Constitutional republic, and also describes the impeachment power. (How many know of the Jewish roots of this document?) Hypocrisy threatens Constitutional government. Could Israel use a constitution like this? More to the point: would a Convention of States save it, or destroy it? (Example: civil asset forfeiture violates the Constitution.) Quick fixes like Regulation Freedom Amendments weaken it. Furthermore: the Constitution provides for removing, and punishing, a judge who commits treason in his rulings. Furthermore, opponents who engage in lawfare against an elected President risk breaking the Constitution.

The New Jersey Obama eligibility challengers went to court yesterday. The result was a setback for them and an embarrassment for the court.

Disinterested judges

The case of Purpura and Moran v. Obama is on appeal after an administrative-law hearing before ALJ Jeff S. Masin (April 10). Judges Clarkson S. Fischer, Jr. (presiding), Philip Carchman, and Linda Baxter heard the argument. Mario Apuzzo, who is working pro bono, argued for the appellants. Angelo Genova, of Genova, Burns, Giantomassi and Webster, argued for Barack Obama. George Cohen, Assistant Attorney General, argued for the Secretary of State.

As they filed in and took their seats, they seemed more than disinterested. They were plainly bored. Judge Fischer, as the embedded video shows, walked into court with his robe open and looked almost disheveled. As they sat and listened, Judges Fischer and Carchman rested their chins in their hands and stared into space, not necessarily at the speaker’s lectern.

The judges asked nearly all their questions of Mr. Apuzzo. Judge Fischer’s question gave the best clue to what all now expect to be a decision to affirm Judge Masin’s rulings. They are:

  1. Obama, as a candidate in a primary, need not show his eligibility to be President.
  2. Obama was born in Hawaii and is therefore a natural born citizen.

Obama’s lawyers argued that New Jersey did not even have subject-matter jurisdiction in such a case. Judge Fischer gave away the reasoning of the court when he suggested to Apuzzo that “chaos” might result if each State determined, on its own, who should have his name on a Presidential ballot, and who shouldn’t. Fischer later suggested that Congress, and the Electoral College as a body, should decide who is eligible as President and who is not.

Obama eligibility and lack of evidence

In his brief to the court, Apuzzo argued that Judge Masin had decided, without evidence, that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii. Furthermore, Masin had made new law when he seemed to rule Obama a natural born citizen. No court has actually ruled that a natural born citizen is merely one born in a country, regardless of parentage.

Advertisement

In US v. Wong Kim Ark, the Supreme Court held that respondent Wong was a citizen, and therefore the US could not expel him from the country. The Court did not say that he would be eligible to the office of President. More telling is Minor v. Happersett, in which the Court held that persons born in-country to citizen parents were “natural born citizens.” That case is still the case that defines the term “natural born citizen,” as opposed to a citizen-at-birth.

Obama eligibility and Constitutional ignorance

Mario Apuzzo, arguing the latest Obama eligibility challenge

Mario Apuzzo walks toward the Office of Administrative Law with his two clients. Photo: CNAV.

The three judges seemed ignorant of the Constitution, especially what it says about how the United States elects Presidents. Article II, Section 1, Paragraph 2 begins:

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

Judge Fischer asked Apuzzo about “chaos” arising from having each State decide who should appear on a ballot. But the Constitution clearly says that States decide whom to send to the Electoral College.

Furthermore, Fischer seemed to think that the Electoral College, as a whole, had the authority to decide who is eligible and who is not. But the Constitution also says that the Electoral College never meets as a body. Instead, each set of Electors meet in their own States, mark their ballots, seal them, and send them to Congress. The Vice-President then opens them in front of Congress in early January.

And, as Apuzzo tried to tell the court, Presidential Electors are pledged to vote for named candidates for President and Vice-President. Indeed, no voter ever knows the name of a candidate for the post of Presidential Elector. The judges reminded Apuzzo that the pledging or binding of Presidential Electors was not an issue at bar. (Twenty-four States legally bind Presidential Electors, though no State has ever punished a “faithless Elector.” New Jersey is not one of those States.)

Activsts react

A handful of Tea Party activists sat through the hearing. All expected the court to affirm Masin’s holdings. They cited the seeming boredom of the judges, and the questions that Judges Fischer and Carchman asked. (Judge Baxter kept silent throughout the hearing.)

Advertisement

“They just said that New Jersey is no longer a sovereign State!” said Bob and Linda Gordon. Paul Draper, of Wall Township, agreed:

What Federal law trumps State law, or State courts? Do they even know that the Constitution gives States the right to run elections in this country?

Draper is correct. Article I of the Constitution gives States the right to run elections for US congressmen. (Amendment XVII gives States the right to run Senate elections.) Article II (see above) gives States the right to appoint Presidential Electors, except that States may not appoint sitting Senators, Representatives, or federal officers.

Nick Purpura, the lead plaintiff in the case, expressed similar outrage.

The judicial ignorance on display in that courtroom is a prime example of why we need judicial reform!

Apuzzo refused comment until the court actually decides. Neither man speculated on whether they would appeal to the Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Related:

ARVE Error: need id and provider

[amazon_carousel widget_type=”ASINList” width=”500″ height=”250″ title=”” market_place=”US” shuffle_products=”True” show_border=”False” asin=”B00375LOEG, 0451947673, 0800733940, 0062073303, 1595230734, 1936218003, 0981559662, 1935071874, 1932172378, 1936488299″ /]

+ posts

Terry A. Hurlbut has been a student of politics, philosophy, and science for more than 35 years. He is a graduate of Yale College and has served as a physician-level laboratory administrator in a 250-bed community hospital. He also is a serious student of the Bible, is conversant in its two primary original languages, and has followed the creation-science movement closely since 1993.

Advertisement
21 Comments
0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

21 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
jefftavolieri

It’s almost hard to believe that you can’t find a single judge to agree with the birthers. It would be immediately appealed, I just can’t believe someone hasn’t done it yet. There have to be crazy judges out there.

Horace

I am not sure why you say that this was an embarrassment for the court. It seems more of an embarrassment for the appellants. Surely you are not suggesting to your readers that the court should be embarrassed based on the “legal analysis” of a few tea partiers in the audience?

JT

How exactly does a provision stating the number of people a state is allowed to select as Electors have any baring on who appears on the Presidential ballot? It has nothing to do with the states deciding who appears.

Unless you’d care to explain in detail just what it is the courts missed. Although I feel it is you engaging in a handy misreading of the Constitution.

I’m still amazed at how dumb court officials become, every time they rule against the birthers. After all, it can’t be because the birthers are utterly, absolutely wrong and have no case.

Still, I suppose WND needs something to attract readers.

Horace

You do understand the difference between electors and candidates on the ballot don’t you Terry?

jefftavolieri

I agree with Terry. The states appoint electors, so it logically follows that the state can dictate who is eligible to be elected, because the constitution.

CowHammer

I agree that the judges were disinterested, but I don’t think you do. I believe you meant uninterested, given the context.

opcnup

You keep mentioning the question about Chaos, but it reveals your own ignorance. Concerns about a precident leading to chaos and disorder have been a part of legal decision making as long as our style of judicial system has been in existence. All through American history you can see judges worrying about confusion, panic, and disorder as a result of a decision.

You stress so much the role of the constitution, ignoring any role of state laws that might lead to the judicial decisions, but you also mention state law when you think it plays in your favor. Specifically I’m thinking about the electors being bound, no where in the constitution does it say that the electors are bound, it is a matter of state law that they are.

JT

Given that elector is defined as:

1. (Government, Politics & Diplomacy) someone who is eligible to vote in the election of a government
2. (Government, Politics & Diplomacy) (often capital) a member of the US electoral college

You still haven’t explained how that translates to states deciding who is on the ballot or not. Choose electors does not equal choosing who appears on the ballot.

Is it possible you don’t understand the meaning of the word?

I think it’s taken on an almost religious aspect with you. It must be like that, because your entire belief system needs it to be like that (a bit like the Flood really).

There is absolutely no correlation between what the Constittion says, and what you want it to say.

JT

wow… that is probably the most liberal interpretation of the Constitution I’ve ever seen. So because a state can appoint people to the Electoral College, it can decide who they vote for?

But I thought that the entire state’s electoral college votes go to the winner of the state, so it’s actually immaterial who they want to vote for. Their votes are dependent on who the majority in the state vote for.

And the EC has no say in who the people of the state can vote for.

Still, it’s fun to watch the birthers grasp at ever-more ridiculous straws, while the lawyers get rich.

JT

That’s all well and fine. But we’re still talking electors here. They have no say in who appears on the ballot. Outside of the original definition, which states that States may appoint Electors, where exactly does it say that they appoint who is on the ballot?

Let’s use a practical example. When Virginia didn’t allow Gingrich on their ballot, was that because in the Constitution it says that their Electors can’t have Gingrich on the ballot, because they don’t like him? Or was it because he applied too late?

The fact remains, you cannot leave who appears and who doesn’t appear on the ballot up to some sort of weird popularity test. That is what the ballot is for. It’s no wonder the judges appeared disinterested and tired.

“And any State may go back to the system of uncommitted, own-conscience-voting Electors that prevailed in the Election of 1789, any time it pleases.”

You mean the system where only white men, who owned property, could vote?

JT

I see no reference to ballots in the Tenth Amendment, but I’ll carry on reading. You still haven’t explained how a law enabling a state to appoint members of the EC suddenly also refers to the state setting up the ballot.

“in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct” is a very handy vague phrase.

Now, let me apply Occam’s Razor to all this. Between the NJ case, Sheriff Joe and Taitz’s mob, there have been goodness knows how many court cases, investigations, requests for information, etc.

All of which have resulted in nada, zip, zilch.

And yet, you somehow think it’s the courts’ fault.

[…] Judicial embarrassment […]

[…] Judicial embarrassment […]

[…] Judicial embarrassment […]

Trending

21
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x