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Friday, November 20, 2009

Ind. Decisions - Re the COA decision in Ankeny v. Governor

The Court of Appeals decision Nov. 12th in the case of Steve Ankeny and Bill Kruse v. Governor of the State of Indiana (see ILB summary here - 2nd case), has been the subject of several favorable items. From a Seattle Times editorial dated Nov. 19, 2009:

In the Indiana case, Ankeny v. Governor of Indiana, the birthers argued a different thing: that a "natural-born citizen" could not have a foreign parent. And in 1961, Obama's father, a Kenyan, was a subject of the British Empire.

The Constitution doesn't say what a natural-born citizen is. The Indiana court dug into the history of U.S. and English common law, and produced the following distinction. There are two kinds of citizens: naturalized, who become citizens after they are born; and natural-born, who are citizens at birth.

All citizens at birth are natural-born. That is the rule used by the Indiana court. By U.S. law, you can be born in Uzbekistan and if you have one American parent who had been American and lived in the United States for a minimum period of time before you were born, you are American.

The Indiana ruling had a footnote. Obama is not the first U.S. president who had a noncitizen parent. "Chester A. Arthur, the twenty-first U.S. President, was born of a mother who was a United States citizen and a father who was an Irish citizen."

From Eugene Volokh, founder of highly regarded law profs blog, The Volokh Conspiracy, this entry:
Indiana Court of Appeals Rejects Claim That “Because His Father Was a Citizen of the United Kingdom, President Obama Is [Not a Natural Born Citizen and Therefore] Constitutionally Ineligible to Assume the Office of the President” - The decision is Ankeny v. Governor, handed down last Thursday. The opinion is pretty detailed, and is the only substantive opinion I know of in a case challenging President Obama’s eligibility (since the other cases, including the ones that assert that he wasn’t born within the U.S., have been rejected on procedural grounds, such as ones related to standing). The court’s reasoning strikes me as quite persuasive.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on November 20, 2009 08:36 AM
Posted to Ind. App.Ct. Decisions