Obama: They just won't stop!!! "Obama citizenship lawsuit"
Obama citizenship lawsuit
Keyes and Markham Robinson, chairman of the American Independent Party and a California candidate for presidential elector, filed a lawsuit on November 14, 2008 against the California Secretary of State, President-elect Barack Obama, Vice President elect Joe Biden, and California's 55 Democratic electors.[91][92] The suit requests that Obama provide documentation that he is a natural born citizen of the United States.[93][94] Keyes also said in an interview that he would not be in favor of amending this requirement of the Constitution.[95]
Similar lawsuits were previously filed by citizens in several states, seeking a copy of Obama's long-form birth certificate, and those states include North Carolina,[96] Ohio,[97] Pennsylvania,[98] Hawaii,[99] Connecticut,[100] New Jersey, Texas and Washington state.[99][101] A major obstacle to such citizen suits has been lack of standing, as none of the plaintiffs were presidential candidates or presidential electors. Two of those citizen suits are scheduled for discussion at the U.S. Supreme Court on December 5, 2008.[102][103]
Barack Obama's short-form birth certificate has been posted online at Obama's website. A short-form birth certificate is different from a long-form. Obama's short form was laser-printed and certified by the State of Hawaii June 6, 2007 as prima facie "evidence of the fact of birth in any court proceeding".[104] Keyes is seeking a copy of the original long-form certificate prepared in 1961.[93][94]
Keyes' petition says that the statement by the head of the Hawaii State Department of Health that she had "personally seen and verified that the Hawaii State Department of Health has Senator Obama’s original birth certificate on record" is insufficient proof of Obama's citizenship, and that "the only way to verify the exact location of birth is to review a certified copy or the original vault Certificate of Live Birth and compare the name of the hospital and the name and the signature of the doctor against the birthing records on file at the hospital".[93][94] A spokeswoman for Hawaii’s department of health says that state law does not allow her to confirm vital records, but also says that her department has authority over records of individuals born in Hawaii.[105] According to UCLA Law Professor Eugene Volokh, a legal challenge to Obama’s citizenship would not only have to establish that he was born outside the United States, but also that Congress cannot retroactively make someone a citizen at birth.[106]
In addition to the California state court lawsuit, Keyes is also a party to a federal lawsuit on this same issue. In response to a subpoena in that federal lawsuit, Hawaii officials declined to provide a copy of the original Obama birth certificate.[107]