Montana’s birther bill, HB-205, was heard in the house’s state administration committee yesterday. Similar legislation is before most state legislatures.
Introduced by Rep. Bob Wagner (R-Harrison), HB-205 requires candidates for federal offices, including President, to produce proof of citizenship. Candidates for President — and that’s what this bill is about — would be required to:
A candidate for president, vice president, or a congressional office shall include as part of the declaration for nomination a sworn affidavit in the form prescribed by rule by the secretary of state. The affidavit must include a statement that the candidate complies with all birth, age, citizenship, and residency requirements prescribed by the United States constitution for the office the candidate is seeking.
(ii) If the office sought is president or vice president, documentation incorporated in and made a part of the affidavit must include:
(A) a certified copy of the candidate’s birth certificate or other documentation that has equal effect of a birth certificate under the laws of the jurisdiction in which the candidate was born that shows the candidate was born within a state or territory of the United States and that the candidate will be at least 35 years of age prior to the inauguration date for the term of office for which the person is a candidate; and
(B) documentary proof of the kind established by rule by the secretary of state that shows that the candidate has complied with the durational citizenship and residency requirements for the office as prescribed by the United States constitution.
I’m not going to spend much time on this. Kellyn Brown has a good write-up in the Flathead Beacon. I expect HB-205 to pass, and to be vetoed by Gov. Schweitzer, who is going to need Johnny Inkslinger’s system of ink supply to keep his veto pen filled.
No one should have illusions about this bill’s true purpose. If enacted into law HB-205 would settle nothing. The people behind these laws are not interested in establishing a bright line standard of proof for settling questions of a candidate’s citizenship. Were documentation meeting the letter of the law presented, it never would be accepted. HB-205 has but one objective: to help delegitimize President Obama’s claim to citizenship and American values by presenting him as a pretender, as a foreign-born black Islamic extremist, as the Manchurian Candidate from Nairobi.
The zealotry and recklessness underlying this legislation and campaign are breathtaking. We have not seen the like for 150 years. In conviction, fecklessness, tenor, and all other manner, they resemble the southern fire-eaters who were hellbent on destroying the union so they could preserve slavery. Today’s fire-eaters are not trying to re-impose human slavery, but they are trying to destroy the legacy of the New Deal and Great Society — Social Security, fair wages, government regulation of critical economic sectors, Medicare, Medicaid — so that America’s poor and middle classes can be economically re-enslaved to the genre of crooks and greedy scoundrels who brought us the Great Depression. They’re willing to accept great economic damage to the country to get their way, for they believe they will rise from the wreckage richer than ever. HB-205 is part of that scheme.