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McCain's Panama birth prompts eligibility probe by his campaign
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| Contributor | Homegrown Democrat |
| Last Edited | Homegrown Democrat Feb 29, 2008 10:06am |
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| Category | News |
| Media | - |
| News Date | Friday, February 29, 2008 04:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | John McCain’s nomination as the Republican candidate may be an electoral near-certainty, but his campaign is investigating whether the senator’s birth in the Panama Canal Zone may disqualify him from the presidency.
Mr McCain was born in 1936 while his father was stationed at a US military base and the Canal Zone was under American control. Although the question was examined during his first presidential bid in 2000, it has been revived as the senator heads towards the nomination.
The issue has also revived a centuries-old debate about the exact meaning of a constitutional clause laid down by the founding fathers in 1787, which declares that only a “natural-born citizen” can occupy the Oval Office.
The restriction was most recently revisited over the possible candidacy of Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Governor of California who was born in Austria but has lived in the United States since 1968.
There is little guidance in the US Constitution as to how the provision should be interpreted and debate has frequently centred on whether only those born on US soil can be considered “natural-born”.
Many experts argue that the nation’s founders could never have intended to exclude the children of those serving in the military, but as all presidents to date have been born within the 50 states there is no legal precedent. |
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