Challenge to Obama’s citizenship is stalled

Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court turned down an emergency appeal Monday from a New Jersey man who claimed that President-elect Barack Obama was not a “natural born citizen” and, therefore, was ineligible to become president.

The setback is the latest, but probably not the last, for a group of litigants who want the courts to block Obama from taking office.

So far, none of these plaintiffs has convinced any judge that Obama’s assertion that he was born in Hawaii on Aug. 4, 1961, is incorrect.

The controversy has been prominent in the conservative blogosphere. It is based on the provision in the Constitution that says, “No person except a natural born citizen ... shall be eligible to the office of President.” Any person born in this country is considered under U.S. law to be a natural born citizen.

But Leo C. Donofrio, a retired lawyer from East Brunswick, N.J., contended that Obama was ineligible to be president because his father was from Kenya. In October, he sued New Jersey Secretary of State Nina Wells, arguing that she should remove from the ballot both Obama and Sen. John McCain because neither was a natural born citizen.

When that claim was rejected by a New Jersey judge and the state supreme court, he filed an “application for an emergency stay” with Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter, who turned it down Nov. 6. He then filed the same application with Justice Clarence Thomas. The court’s routine procedure in such instances is that the second justice refers the matter to the court as a whole. Otherwise, lawyers whose client faces a pending execution might file the same application with each of the nine justices.

Donofrio said Obama should “be required to prove ... he was born in Hawaii. ... Even if it were proved he was born in Hawaii, Sen. Obama’s father was born in Kenya, and therefore, having been born with split and competing loyalties, candidate Obama is not a ‘natural born citizen.’”

In Monday’s order, the court said it had denied Donofrio’s request for a stay.

Most of the lawsuits involving Obama’s birth say state officials should investigate his Hawaiian birth certificate to see whether it is valid. The Supreme Court decides legal issues involving federal law and the Constitution, but it does not resolve factual disputes.