Can McCain Legally Be President?

Not if you believe being born in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936 doesn’t meet the requirement that a president has to be a “natural-born citizen”  Article II Section I of the Constitution states:

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.

Thursday’s New York Times reminds us that this debate is being revived, and that it is “not a frivolous issue” according to Atlanta lawyer Jill Pryor who wrote on this for the Yale Law Journal.  The question was also raised in 1998 before McCain embarked on his 2000 bid.

To date, no American to take the presidential oath has had an official birthplace outside the 50 states.

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.