Loophole: McCain is technically not eligible to be President…
By 
Shan-ul-Hai •
July 11, 2008
Among the random pointless stipulations in American law is the constitutional requirement that the President must be a natural-born US citizen. Personally, I don’t see how that makes any difference in a person’s ability to run the country (i.e. what if a person migrated to the US when he was 4 years old? Why does that have to make him ineligible), but rules are rules. And throughout all of the different people who have attempted to prove John McCain’s ineligibility, one argument beats the rest…
Any child born within the limits of the United States is considered a citizen. Until 1937, American citizenship law stated that any child born to American parents “out of the limits and jurisdiction” of the United States was also a US citizen. That means that if your parents are US citizens and you’re born in a foreign country, then you don’t have anything to worry about. John McCain, however, was born in the Panama Canal Zone, which was outside the limits of the US but inside American jurisdiction. That means that he didn’t qualify as one of the children born “out of the limits and jurisdiction” of the United States.
So, he didn’t become a US citizen until a couple of months after his birth. It shouldn’t matter, but it does violate the Constitutional requirement that the President must be a “natural-born” citizen. Is that grounds to take the office away from him?
Popularity: 25% [?]
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That sounds legit, but of course we need thirty lawyers to look at it.
Truthfully, of course, depending on how all the wording is, I’d say that likely those are grounds!
On the other hand, I doubt anybody will give a s–t.
In fact, possibly nobody has even given a thought about it and likely nobody else will. Unfortunately, that’s how it works.
Article II of the constitution says “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…”
The First Congress, on March 26, 1790, approved an act that declared, “The children of citizens of the United States that may be born beyond sea, or outside the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural-born citizens of the United States.”
So I think he’s pretty much okay.
“Is that grounds to take the office away from him?”
Dude has to win the office first. lets not put the tyrant in front of the cart, now.
it is grounds to invalidate his run for the office.
ummm…the canal zone was U.S. territory. Same as Hawaii was. At least McCain showed a real birth certificate to those asking to see one.
Yes, of course it was US territory… that’s why this is such an obscure issue. The point is that it was outside of US borders, for which reason McCain wasn’t granted citizenship until a few months after he was born. Technically, that means that he wasn’t a natural-born citizen.