Birthers Find New Avenue

The birthers are back in the news. This time they have a new plan to keep Obama from running for re-election, a plan that looks like it will become law in Arizona and may creep into several other states as well. Unfortunately, I suspect this will look very bad for the Republicans.

The newest plan is sponsored by Arizona Republican Judy Burges and 31 other Arizona House and Senate Republicans. It is all but guaranteed to pass, as there are almost as many cosponsors as votes needed to pass the bill. This bill would bar any presidential candidate who cannot prove they were born in the United States from appearing on the ballot in Arizona. If that’s all the bill said, then this wouldn’t be an issue. But the bill goes further, it specifically requires candidates to provide

“an original long-form birth certificate that includes the date and place of birth, the names of the hospital and the attending physician and signatures of the witnesses in attendance.”

While this sounds fine, it’s actually unconstitutional. Why? Because states are not allowed to discriminate against citizens of other states, and part of that means they can’t refuse to recognize marriages, births, divorces, drivers licenses, and property records that are considered valid in other states. In other words, if Hawaii or Kentucky or whoever decide that a person is a legal resident, Arizona cannot demand that a person provide additional proof beyond that required by Hawaii or Kentucky. Thus, Arizona cannot say “we want more documentation than Hawaii requires.”

Moreover, this requirement raises all kinds of issues. What happens to people whose original birth certificates get lost or destroyed? Of if the doctor failed to sign the certificate? What if the witness signs as “Mickey Mouse” or signed with an "X"? What if Wyoming doesn’t use long-form birth certificates? These people would suddenly be disqualified from running for President, which means this bill is trying to add requirements to the US Constitution. . . that’s a legal no-no.

So if this will fail in court, what’s the big deal? The big deal is the politics of this.

Americans hate technicalities; they see the exploitation of technicalities as cheating, whether in sports or court or jobs or politics. Obama is an American, there’s no one who can seriously doubt that. He was born to an American mother, he was raised largely in the US. He’s as American as a great many of the rest of us. To try to keep him from running because the exact location of his birth is in dispute, is a technicality. And to try to keep him out, when he’s already been elected and is currently serving, will strike Americans as an attempt to cheat -- to use a legal technicality to defeat a political opponent.

(Not to mention that the only thing worse than cheating is cheating ineffectively -- which this would be as Obama won’t win Arizona anyway and as this requirement will be struck down).

And before anyone says, “but it’s the law,” ask yourself how you would have reacted if in 1983, a Democrat discovered that the doctor who should have signed Ronald Reagan’s birth certificate forgot. . . or misspelled his name. . . and suddenly the Democratic Congress passed a law declaring that Reagan couldn’t run for re-election. I’ll bet your response wouldn’t have been “awe shucks, what a shame.” Your response would have bordered on rage or disgust at the Democrats. So why should we think the public would be any less forgiving if Republicans do this to Obama?

Obama is definitely beatable. Trying to disqualify Obama in this way will make Republicans look petty and like cheaters, and will turn Obama from a foolish dictator-wannabe into a victim. In fact, this is eerily similar to the Republicans impeaching Bill Clinton for “lying.” They may have been legally right, but they were politically very wrong, and they paid a heavy price for pursuing what appeared to be a vindictive agenda.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m enjoying the fact this issue keeps dogging Obama -- I particularly liked how Hawaii Democratic Government Abercrombie breathed new life into the whole thing by trying to kill it. . . but Republicans need to get out and stay out of the birther issue. Leave that to humor circuit.