God bless Mae Beavers. She is a solid conservative. She has a pro-life, small government, pro-2nd amendment, pro-educational reform, and pro-parental rights voting record. Unfortunately, she is now getting silly by pandering to the birthers.
Mae Beavers has introduced a bill that would require that in order to have one’s name placed on the ballot to run for President in Tennessee, one would have to provide the following:
(i) An original long form birth certificate that includes the date and place of birth, the names of the hospital and the attending physician, and signatures of the witnesses in attendance;Maybe Mae Beavers really believe President Obama is an alien and is illegally serving as president. Maybe she really believes this bill is necessary. Or, maybe she has an enthusiastic constituent who worked hard for her election and contributed to her campaign and to whom she promised that if reelected she would sponsor such a bill. I don’t know.
(ii) A sworn statement attesting that the candidate has not held dual or multiple citizenship and that the candidate's allegiance is solely to the United States of America; and
(iii) A sworn statement or form that identifies the candidate's places of residence in the United States for the preceding fourteen (14) years.
As of now, the bill has no co-sponsor and no companion bill in the house. Hopefully this will die a quite death and Ms Beavers can tell her constituent, “I tried.” If this moves forward, someone needs to amend it to require everyone running for any office to also meet the same requirements. (How do you get a copy of your long-form birth certificate?)
To other Republicans in the House and Senate: Please do not sign on as sponsors of this bill. Please do not introduce a companion bill in the House. Things like this make Republicans look like fringe freaks and right-wing nut jobs. Sponsoring nutty stuff like this is a recipe for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and returning this state to Democratic hands. This is embarrassing.
I am emailing this blog post to Mae Beavers with this message: .
Dear Ms Beavers,I see that you have introduced bill SB 0366 creating a new requirement for having one's name placed on the ballot to run for President in Tennessee. I urge you to withdraw this bill. In my view, legislation such as this makes Republicans look like right-wing nut-jobs, destroys the sponsors credibility, and helps Democrats.Could you please explain why you introduced this bill? I am a local blogger and will post your reply in full.
Stay tuned: I will list any House sponsors or co-sponsors or any reply from Mae Beavers.
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There are several things wrong with the proposed law. I hope that you ask Ms. Beavers how ANYONE (republicans included) can gat their ORIGINAL birth certificate? At best, all you get is a certified copy. Furthermore, I would direct Ms. Beavers’ attention to Article IV, Section 1 of the United States Constitution which states: “Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.” Congress has already enacted regulations whereby the acceptable format of a birth certificate have been defined, and those regulations do not require any information regarding the names of the hospital and the attending physician, and signatures of the witnesses in attendance.
ReplyDeleteThe second part of the proposed bill is equally stupid. There is NO constitutional requirements that prevent candidates with dual citizenship from the presidency.
ReplyDeleteIf fact, this proposed law would essentially strip the from the Unites States its fundamental sovereignty.
Consider this, having a dual or multiple citizenship is the function of the authority of another country, not by the authority of the United States. So essentially, what Ms. Beavers is doing here is allowing other countries to make laws or take actions that will directly affect who can be president of the United States.
For instance, suppose the country of Albania decided to pass a law stating that all persons born in North America were automatically Albanian citizens, regardless of weather they wanted to be Albanian citizens or not with the exception of left handed redheads (Albanians, it seems, are prejudiced against left handed redheads). Under Ms. Beavers' proposed law, that means that ONLY left handed redheads would be eligible to run for president in Tennessee. (Hmm, I wonder if Ed Shultz is left handed?)
Does this scenario seem absurd, well so is Ms. Beavers' proposed law.
"As of now, the bill has no co-sponsor . . . "
ReplyDeleteHow long do you think it will take before Stacey Campfield jumps on board?