Tuesday - April 19, 2011

Still Stuck On Stupid

Oh noes, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer vetoed the “birther bill”!!! While admitting that the AZ legislature probably has the votes to override her veto, she said she vetoed the bill because it was “a brdige too far”; in her opinion it gave the AZ secretary of state too much power.

Brewer said in her veto letter that she was troubled that the bill empowered Arizona’s secretary of state to judge the qualifications of all candidates when they file to run for office.

“I do not support designating one person as the gatekeeper to the ballot for a candidate, which could lead to arbitrary or politically motivated decisions,” said Brewer,

Ok, that sort of makes sense if you don’t think about it at all. The blatantly stated implication being that corruption would sneak in; absolute power and so forth? What does that say about the government of Arizona when the governor of that state implies that the secretary of state of that state isn’t fully trustworthy? And it is generally the secretary of state’s actual job to be the “gatekeeper to the ballot”. Somebody has to have the responsibility. What underling does Brewer think ought to be the one to make the decision? The Bisbee dogcatcher?

And then she goes into stupid land with

“In addition, I never imagined being presented with a bill that could require candidates for president of the greatest and most powerful nation on Earth to submit their ‘early baptismal circumcision certificates’ among other records to the Arizona secretary of state,” she said. “This is a bridge too far.”

Is it too much to expect that the governor and the media actually read the damn bill? (applicable text below the fold here)

Pretty much everyone has a proper birth certificate these days, but AZ bill HB2177 tries to be fair and cover those situations where a valid “natural born” citizen doesn’t. Was it foolish of them to do so? Did they make a mess of it? Let’s look at the wording and see what they created, and try and shoot holes in it.

Part A. The party has to tell the state that so-and-so is going to be their candidate for President, and that what’s-his-face is going to be their candidate for Vice President. Fine by me. Next, the party has 10 days to hand in an affidavit that their candidate is a natural born citizen, and include proof of that. What the heck, it’s only in the Constitution after all. Fine by me. Too bad that the Arizona bill didn’t also extend this burden of proof to the VP candidate. That requirement is not explicitly stated in the Constitution, but it really ought to be, don’t you think? And don’t you think it should also apply to anyone in any of the “succession" positions below those offices, which would thus force every member of the federal legislature to be a natural born citizen as well? Or at least extend the natural born qualifier bit to those proper “officers” if a strict interpretation of Article II Section 1 is used and the 1947 Act is tossed out? But that’s getting off topic. Let’s focus on what the Arizona bill was trying to do, which was to keep possible usurpers off the ballot in the first place.

Part B. What is proof?

Subsection 1. A long form birth certificate with traceable data. Name, date, hospital, doctor, signatures of witnesses.

But I don’t have one! Ok, then come up with at least two of the following:
a. baptismal record OR circumcision record (gosh, the first bit doesn’t apply to atheists and the second bit doesn’t apply to females!! And Jan, what the heck kind of church do you belong to that does the baptisms and circumcisions at the same time???)
b. hospital birth record (gosh, but she was born at home, or in a ditch by the side of the road!!)
c. postpartum medical record ... signed by the person who delivered the child or who examined it after birth (gosh, after mom had the baby in the field, she went back to the log cabin in the mountains!)
d. early census record (all this will show is that a child under 10 was living at some place at some point. It may be proof of residency, but it is not any proof of citizenship)

Subsection 2. A sworn statement or form that shows that the presidential candidate has lived in the USA for at least 14 years.

Part C. Oh, Part B subsection 1 can also include an official affidavit from at least two people who witnessed the birth. (but she was alone, at night, in the snow!)

Part D. If the secretary of state is given the alternate junk in B.1.a - B.1.d and/or C., and can’t figure it out, they have the power to send this mess to committee or to hold hearings. They don’t have to do either one.  Then what happens?

Part E. (not an enumerated subsection) Jumping back to Part A, if the candidate and his party’s election committee don’t submit the required documents and swear up and down that they are true, then the candidate does not get their name on the ballot.

(not another enumerated subsection either) If they do submit the docs, but the AZ secretary of state, along with the possible assistance of the optional committee or hearings, feels that most of it is crap, then the candidate does not get their name on the ballot.

Part F. An elected state level legislator or any AZ citizen can request that this law be enforced. (yeah, let’s make sure the barn door is closed after the horse has left and the building has burned down)

And that’s the entire bill. Ok, that’s the part that applies to Presidential Candidates. The rest of the bill only applies to local and state elections.

It certainly could be better written. Part C should really be B.1.e. Part D should require either public hearings or a committee, not “may” allow for them. Part E should be two subsections under Part D. Part F should not exist: this bill should establish a procedure that WILL ALWAYS HAPPEN for every candidate wishing to run for President to get on the AZ ballot.

It is easy to shoot holes in the requirements for B.1.a-B.1.d. Let’s say that single mommy, a full citizen living in the USA who doesn’t believe in God, went for a hike by herself, the exertion of that activity caused her to go into labor, and she delivered her own daughter out in the woods with only the aid of a sharp rock and a bit of vine. And got home a day or two later and stayed home alone for two weeks recovering, but realized that she was basically Ok, so she didn’t call a doctor or 911.  That gives you a fully natural born citizen who would not pass the muster required by this bill. But how do you write a bill that says “Hey, you wanna run for President in our state? Prove you’re a normal citizen just like everybody else.” and then try to be nice and allow for oddball circumstances? I don’t think you can. And that means that once in a while someone is going to sneak in through the cracks, even if they were actually born in Kenya and then adopted by some white girl who was just passing by. [ Seriously. I’m not really part of the “Birther” crowd, but I’m not happy with the oddball shit surrounding Obama. Are there even pictures of his mother being pregnant? Does anyone have her passport showing that she was in the USA when he was born? Did anyone ever even do a blood test to prove he was her child? Or his? Too many questions. Better off not allowing any oddball candidates to run. Sorry, but too bad. I can come up with a boxful of pics of my mom gravid with me. I have my original birth certificate right here, and I’m sure I’m at least a checkmark on several censuses conducted when I was a child. Plus the hospital I was born in is still in business, and they have records. So do the state and the county. So does my church. You have the same documentation too. We all do at this point. Everyone does, except Obama. Or whatever his name was at that time. We all also have school records going back all the way, and they would be made public if we ran for office. But not Fearless Reader. ]

So Brewer was perfectly correct in not signing this partially flawed piece of legislature. Try it again guys, and do a better job next time. However, her rejecting it because it mentions circumcision, and the media and the armies of comment snipers who can’t show any more maturity than Beavis & Butthead, are just plain wrong. And Brewer’s qualm that it’s a “bridge too far” to give the AZ Sec State this much power is also wrong. That is part of the job. You certainly don’t want the decision made on a town by town or county by county basis by 1000 different people. It has to be made at the state level, and it has to be made near the top of the heap. That’s what the secretary of state is all about. They have to be trusted to be above politics. The whole thing falls apart if they aren’t. Stipulate that the grunt work has to be done by a bi-partisan committee, but the ultimate decision has to be made by the person in that job. That is not a bridge too far at all.

Posted by Drew458     on 04/19/2011 at 10:00 AM   
Filed Under: • Government • Politics •  
• Comments (8) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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