Philip Berg's lawsuit challenging Obama's constitutional eligibility to serve as president of the United States was dismissed by Judge R. Barclay Surrick on grounds that Berg lacked standing.
Generally, a standing issue has to do whether or not the person bringing a lawsuit has a legal right to bring the suit.
In his 34 page decision, Judge Surrick sees no "injury" resulting from a candidate’s ineligibility under the Natural Born Citizen Clause:
To reiterate: a candidate’s ineligibility under the Natural Born Citizen Clause does not result in an injury in fact to voters. By extension, the theoretical constitutional harm experienced by voters does not change as the candidacy of an allegedly ineligible candidate progresses from the primaries to the general election.
So, who does have standing to challenge whether a presidential candidate meets the constitutional eligibility requirement of being a "natural born citizen?" According to Surrick, that is completely up to Congress:
If, through the political process, Congress determines that citizens, voters, or party members should police the Constitution’s eligibility requirements for the Presidency, then it is free to pass laws conferring standing on individuals like Plaintiff.
Until Congress does that, voters do not have standing to bring a lawsuit challenging a presidential candidate's constitutional eligibility.
Berg issued a press release saying he will appeal:
Berg said, "I am totally disappointed by Judge Surrick's decision
and, for all citizens of the United States, I am immediately appealing
to the U.S. Supreme Court."
This is a question of who has
standing to uphold our Constitution. If I don't have standing, if you
don't have standing, if your neighbor doesn't have standing to question
the eligibility of an individual to be President of the United States -
the Commander-in-Chief, the most powerful person in the world - then
who does?
So, anyone can just claim to be eligible for congress
or the presidency without having their legal status, age or citizenship
questioned. According to Judge Surrick, we the people have no right to police the eligibility requirements under the U.S. Constitution.
What
happened to ‘...Government of the people, by the people, for the
people,...’ Abraham Lincoln in his Gettysburg Address 1863.
Berg's appeal is not likely to succeed. The way Obama and the Democratic National Committee fought Berg's lawsuit, and the way Judge Surrick dismissed it, leaves the question of Obama's constitutional eligibility unresolved.
Judge Surrick obviously didn't think much of Berg's evidence:
Various accounts, details and ambiguities from Obama’s childhood form the basis of Plaintiff’s allegation that Obama is not a natural born citizen of the United States. To support his contention, Plaintiff cites sources as varied as the Rainbow Edition News Letter … and the television news tabloid Inside Edition. These sources and others lead Plaintiff to conclude that Obama is either a citizen of his father’s native Kenya, by birth there or through operation of U.S. law; or that Obama became a citizen of Indonesia by relinquishing his prior citizenship (American or Kenyan) when he moved there with his mother in 1967. Either way, in Plaintiff’s opinion, Obama does not have the requisite qualifications for the Presidency that the Natural Born Citizen Clause mandates. The Amended Complaint alleges that Obama has actively covered up this information and that the other named Defendants are complicit in Obama’s cover-up.
Nevertheless, because the case was dismissed on the standing issue, not on the merits of Berg's allegations that Obama does not meet the Constitutional requirement of being a natural born citizen, the issue will continue to dog Obama until Obama produces documents that prove Obama's eligibility and make the question go away?
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