U.S. Supreme Court to Decide Election Again?

Gore v Bush decided the election in 2000 so are we going to see a repeat? One of the natural born citizen court cases may be pending before the U.S. Supreme Court after a full conference on December 5th.

There is some evidence that Obama was born in Kenya and not the United States. If that is the case, he cannot be the President. Here is the relevant part of the Constitution:

"No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty five years, and been fourteen Years a resident within the United States."

But wait, Obama was born in Hawaii, so what is the big deal? The Answer is that so far all we have seen is a Certificate of Live Birth from Hawaii and even that is not a certified copy. What is needed to clear all this up is a certified copy of the long form birth certificate, the one that most of us have showing the hospital, time of birth and the name and signature of the attending doctor. There are lawsuits pending in dozens of states asking the courts to force Obama to produce this document. So far, these have all been dismissed for one technical reason or another, but not one has been decided on the merits.

Then there is the interesting case of Leo C. Donofrio v. Nina Mitchell Wells, Secretary of State of the State of New Jersey. This case has been scheduled for a full conference of the U.S. Supreme Court on December 5th. For those who are not familiar with what that means, a full conference is where the Court with four votes decides to take up a case for oral argument. The advantage of this case is that Donofrio had the wisdom to challenge all the candidates on the ballot whose citizenship is in doubt. That includes John McCain who was born in the Canal Zone. This would allow the Court to take this case without seeming to be picking on just Obama.

There is another case in California, Ambassador Dr. Alan Keyes; Dr. Wiley S. Drake, Sr.; and Markham Robinson v. California Secretary of State Debra Bowen et al. Unlike the first case, this one must be heard because there are criminal penalties involved. However, no matter what the Court in California decides, it will be appealed to higher courts and there is not time for that between now and December 15th. No matter what happens, any such case will ultimately be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. Only the Donofrio case has a chance of being decided by December 15th. We are looking at a severe consitutional crisis if this is not decided before inauguration on January 20th. After that date, should Obama be found to be ineligible, Biden would become President. The Courts know this so if they are going to do this, they will do it soon.

Most people have long since forgotten their U.S. History course in high school. For those of you who paid attention, no Presidential Election is over just because the votes have been counted and the winner determined. The election results mean nothing until the Electoral College casts its votes for the winner. What is this nonsense about the electoral college? Sorry, folks, you did not vote for someone for President; you voted for a bunch of electors who will decide who is President on December 15, 2008. Remember that long list of names of each of the candidates? Those names are the people you really voted for not the candidates themselves. If you want a refresher course on the Electoral College, click on the link.

The Electoral College is just a formality these days, isn't it? Yes, that is usually true, but what if the electors cannot cast their ballots for Obama? The electors can only vote for an individual qualified under the Constitution to be President. If Obama is disqualified before inauguration, the decision will fall back into the Electoral College and then the Presidency will be up for grabs. You have to remember that those electors are pledged to Obama for President and to Biden only for Vice-President. If they cannot vote for Obama because he has been ruled to not be qualified, they are going to listen to Obama about who he thinks should replace him. He might go for Biden but nothing says he has to recommend him. The question is who will Obama select should this happen? Somehow I do not think it will be Hillary and whether Hillary could get enough electors to support her in the face of opposition by Obama is highly questionable. Of course, she only needs 97 of them if the Republicans throw their support behind her, but then they would demand to be able to pick the Vice-President and the Obama electors are pledged to Biden for that.

The scary part is that Obama needs only 270 of the 365 electors pledged to him to pick anyone he damn well pleases that meets the Constitutional requirements. Maybe then we will find out who is really the power behind the throne. Somehow, I rather think he would not be inclined to pick a white person. That would be throwing away a historic moment. I will leave it to your imagination to see who that might be. The only check on him will be that another Democrat could peel off 97 or more electors and get the Republican electors to go along if the Republicans think Obama's choice is just as bad as him or possibly even worse. How could anyone be as bad or worse than Obama and still be a black American? I am sure we could come up with a few. Barney Frank? Rev. Wright? Jesse Jackson, Sr? Al Sharpton? Ouch!