Constitutional expert says arguments over Barack Sr. strong

A recognized expert on the U.S. Constitution says the arguments put forward in a hearing today in Georgia challenging Barack Obama's eligibility to be president because his father never was a U.S. citizen are strong.

"That is much stronger than the question of where he was born," Herb Titus told WND today after the hearing. "That alone is evidence. … They don't need anything additional."

The hearing was before Judge Michael Malihi of the Georgia state Office of State Administrative Hearings. In Georgia, a state law requires "every candidate for federal" office who is certified by the state executive committees of a political party or who files a notice of candidacy "shall meet the constitutional and statutory qualifications for holding the office being sought."

State law also grants the secretary of state and any "elector who is eligible to vote for a candidate" in the state the authority to raise a challenge to a candidate's qualifications, the judge determined.

Citizens bringing the complaints include David Farrar, Leah Lax, Thomas Malaren and Laurie Roth, represented by Taitz; David Weldon represented by attorney Van R. Irion of Liberty Legal Foundation; and Carl Swensson and Kevin Richard Powell, represented by J. Mark Hatfield. Cody Judy is raising a challenge because he also wants to be on the ballot.

Malihi's determination is expected later.

As an authority on the U.S. Constitution, Titus' credentials are top of the line.

Now of counsel to the law firm of William J. Olson, P.C., he previously taught constitutional law, common law and other subjects for nearly 30 years at five different American Bar Association-approved law schools. From 1986 to 1993, he served as the founding dean of the College of Law and Government in Regent University, Virginia Beach, Va. Prior to his academic career, he served as a trial attorney and a special assistant United States attorney with the United States Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. and Kansas City, Mo. Today he is engaged in a general practice with a concentration in constitutional strategy, litigation, and appeals.

Discover what the Constitution's reference to "natural born citizen" means and whether Barack Obama qualifies, in the ebook version of "Where's the REAL Birth Certificate?"

His degrees are from Harvard and the University of Oregon.

He told WND that the case today set a precedent because all of the dozens of other cases that have gone through the system were dismissed before any evidence was introduced. The judges mostly found that there was a lack of "standing" or some other technicality on which to dismiss the cases.

The case before the Georgia court, saying Obama isn't a "natural born citizen" as the Constitution requires for presidents because his father never was an American, "is new."

"Those [other] cases were initiated about Obama's ineligibility based upon essentially that he was not born in Hawai. But now there's a different standard being urged upon the court, not about where, but to whom," he said.

He said "natural born citizen" in the Constitution simply means the son or daughter of American citizens.

"This is correct. There are lots of terms of the Constitution that are not defined in the instrument. This is one of them," he said.

But he said the 1875 Minor vs. Happersett case in the U.S. Supreme Court concluded that the "natural born citizen" designation is reserved for "a citizen that's defined by common law, and that requires that the person be born to a mother and father of the citizenship that the son or daughter will have."

The merits of the arguments over the father's citizenship, documented as Kenyan in Barack Obama's own writings, are "much stronger than the question of where he was born."

On the document released by the White House itself, which Obama attested to as being valid, his father was "African."

Titus noted the designation is regarded as a nationality, not a racial statement, but "that alone is evidence he was not born to two American citizen parents."

"I don't think there's any need to submit any other evidence," he said.

He earlier made a video explaining the issue of "natural born citizen" as it's used in the Constitution:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqeV0ZlZ1Cw

"'Natural born citizen' in relation to the office of president, and whether someone is eligible, was in the Constitution from the very beginning," he said. "Another way of putting it: There is a law of the nature of citizenship. If you are a natural born citizen, you are a citizen according to the law of nature, not according to any positive statement in a Constitution or in a statute, but because of the very nature of your birth and the very nature of nations."

If you "go back and look at what the law of nature would be or would require … that's precisely what a natural born citizen is …. is one who is born to a father and mother each of whom is a citizen of the U.S. or whatever other country..."

"Now what we've learned from the Hawaii birth certificate is that Mr. Obama's father was not a citizen of the United States. His mother was, but he doesn't qualify as a natural born citizen for the office of president."

There have been allegations since long before Obama's election in 2008 that he is not a "natural-born citizen," a requirement imposed by the Constitution on no other official.

Obama's critics believe that at the time the Constitution was written, the founders agree with Titus, and understood "natural-born citizen" to mean the offspring of two citizens.

Obama has claimed he was born in Hawaii, but birth documentation he's released has been judged by a number of document, imaging and graphics experts to be fake.

Others believe he would fail to qualify no matter his place of birth, because his father, Barack Obama Sr., was a Kenyan subject to the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom at the time of Obama Jr.'s birth. They allege the founders precluded dual citizens by specifically demanding a "natural-born citizen."