Why no foreign-born American as president?

WASHINGTON -

It’s not just Americans who are wondering how the battle between John McCain and Barack Obama will come out on Election Day.

People from Uganda to Pakistan have written to me asking questions about the election.

Someone in Strabane, Northern Ireland recently asked:

If you live long enough in the United States — for at least 14 years — and have a political background, can you run for president and vice president?

Let’s assume our reader is referring to a citizen of a foreign country who immigrates to the United States from South Korea, the United Kingdom, or some other country.

The answer is no.

That person cannot serve as president, even if he or she becomes a naturalized United States citizen and meets the other qualifications for president, such as being at least 35 years old.

Article II of the Constitution, which lists the qualifications, says a person must be “a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution.”

A foreigner who becomes a naturalized U.S. citizen can serve as a member of Congress, or as a state governor, but cannot serve as president.

There’s some legal debate about what the phrase “natural born Citizen” means. For instance, what if an American woman was on a weeklong Italian vacation and gave birth? Could that baby someday be president of the United States?

This legal question has never been definitively resolved.

One thing that is clear, however, is that the Framers of the Constitution didn't intend for foreigners who emigrated to the United States to become president.

And this includes naturalized U.S. citizens such as Austrian-born California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who was born in Prague in what is now the Czech Republic.

The authoritative commentator on the the Constitution, Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, explained in 1833 that this provision of the Constitution “cuts off all chances for ambitious foreigners, who might otherwise be intriguing for the office; and interposes a barrier against those corrupt interferences of foreign governments in executive elections, which have inflicted the most serious evils upon the elective monarchies of Europe.”

In 2003, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, proposed an amendment to the Constitution that would make naturalized citizens eligible to be president, but that amendment hasn’t come to vote in Congress.

Persons born in the United States — other than children of enemy aliens or foreign diplomats — are automatically given American citizenship.

So it’s possible that a baby born on U.S. soil to a foreign woman who had entered the United States illegally could someday grow up to be president of the United States.

A reader from Uganda asked...

Does American politics call for international observers like other countries all over the world?
Nothing in U.S. law requires election observers to be invited to watch balloting in presidential elections. But in 2004 and again this year the U.S. State Department has invited observers from the Organization for the Security and Cooperation in Europe, or OSCE, to witness the balloting.

In 2004, the OSCE sent 92 monitors from several nations, including Norway, Canada, and Kazakhstan, to observe the presidential election.

Here are other questions we've fielded — on everything from campaign contributions to the makeup of the Electoral College:

Overseas voting

I was born in Puerto Rico but have been in the U.S. Army for the last 18 years and decided to change my home state to the state of Florida. Am I able to vote for a president in the upcoming election?
According to the Florida Secretary of State’s office the answer is: Yes, you can vote in the Nov. 4 presidential election, assuming you register in time. In Florida, the deadline for registration in order to vote in the presidential election is Oct. 6.

Puerto Ricans living in Puerto Rico cannot vote in the presidential election because the Constitution says that only the citizens of states and the District of Columbia have the right to vote in those contests.

However, Puerto Ricans are United States citizens, and Puerto Ricans who move to Florida, or any other state, and establish legal residency can vote in presidential elections.

But professor Christina Duffy Burnett of Columbia University Law School points to Romeu v. Cohen, a 2001 decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

The court ruled that Americans who move from the United States to Puerto Rico and establish residency on the island cannot vote in presidential elections.

The Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Voting Act (UOCAVA) of 1986 protects the voting rights of U.S. citizens residing in foreign countries.

Even though residents of Puerto Rico and other U.S. territories are American citizens, they are not covered under UOCAVA.

So a New Yorker moving to Paris or Shanghai can vote in a presidential election, but a New Yorker moving to Mayaguez, Puerto Rico cannot.

UOCAVA also applies to members of the military on active duty, whether they're stationed in the United States or overseas.

The soldier at Fort Stewart must first register to vote by filling out a voter registration form. Since he's in the military and is covered by UOCAVA, he can register using the Federal Post Card Application.

The Overseas Vote Foundation has an excellent, user-friendly website. It can walk soldiers and other service members through the steps they need to take in order register and vote.

The Federal Voting Assistance Program also has useful information on how to make ensure that Americans in uniform can vote.

Campaign finance

What is the difference between public and private campaign money
Private money is raised from campaign donors. There is not limit to the total amount that an individual candidate can raise, but private donors are limited to giving $2,300 for the primary season and another $2,300 for the general election.

Public money comes from the voluntary check-off system on individual income tax returns. The individual tax check-off amount is $3.

A candidate can opt in or out of public financing during the primary season. It's the same for the general election. For example, in 2004, Democratic contender John Kerry didn't use public money during the primary season, but he did during the general election.

During the primaries, if a presidential hopeful decides to accept public funding, every dollar raised from donors is matched with money from the public fund.

But primary candidates who choose to use the public system must agree to an overall spending limit, as well as spending caps in each state.

For the 2008 primary season, the overall limit was about $50 million.

But it's a different story during the general election. There's not matching program, it's just a flat amount determined by the Federal Election Commission.

The FEC has set this year's general election fund at $84 million.

Why would a candidate chose not to use public funding?
When a candidate accepts public funding, they're limiting the amount of campaign cash they can spend.

For example, as of June 20, Obama’s campaign had raised more than $287 million. And there's every reason to think he'll continue to raise more and have that money to spend.

If he chose to use the public system, he'd only have $84 million to spend.

John McCain on the other hand, is accepting public funds for the general election. This could mean he feared being outpaced by Obama if he was also singularly reliant on private donors.

In the general election, Obama is the first presidential candidate to opt out of the public financing system since it was first used in the 1976 election.

So why was the public financing system created?
In the aftermath of the Watergate scandal and some related campaign funding scandals, Congress created the system out of concern that "big money" donors had become too powerful.

But in a campaign such as Obama’s which has raised nearly $300 million, a single donor who makes the maximum contribution of $4,600 is a minuscule drop in a huge bucket.

Are there ways around this system?
Maybe not around the system, but through it.

Both candidates are able to help raise money for their respective national party committees. In turn, the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee can return the favor.

Each national party committee can spend up to $19 million in coordination with their presidential candidate. They can also spearhead voter mobilization efforts and advertising campaigns.

Donors can also give the RNC and DNC up to $28,500 a year — much more money than can be donated to an individual candidate.

At what point are presidential candidates required to stop spending primary monies and start spending from their general election coffers?
Generally speaking, the party’s conventions are the dividing line between the primary season and the general election.

But in effect, both McCain and Obama have been campaigning for the general election ever since they clinched their parties’ nominations.

For McCain that date was Feb. 7 when Mitt Romney dropped out of the GOP contest; for Obama it was June 7 when Clinton called it quits.

For a candidate, like Obama, who is operating outside the public financing system, there’s really not much distinction between spending money on winning primaries and spending money to win the general election.

He can spend as much as he wants any time he wants.

There’s an unresolved dispute between the Federal Election Commission and the McCain campaign as to whether he did opt out of the public funding system in the primaries.

His campaign said he was opting out; the FEC has not yet ruled on whether McCain has followed the correct procedure for opting out.

Here's the rest of our question and answer series:

Running mates

Why can't we have a one-day presidential primary election? Why must it span over months and yet we only have one day to vote in the general presidential election?

Well, dear reader, you may think a national primary is a good idea. Now all you need to do is persuade the 7,382 members of all 50 state legislatures.

So, here's the answer to your question: There’s no federal law which decides that there will be a national primary on a given date. Arguably such a law would be unconstitutional since the Constitution leaves most electoral matters to the state governments.

Each state legislature makes its own decision about when the state’s primary will be held.

The national committees of each major political party also have a big voice in deciding the schedule: look at the heated argument this year over Michigan and Florida deciding to jump ahead of the calendar mandated by the Democratic National Committee.

The National Association of Secretaries of State, which represents the officials who oversee elections in each state, has called the current primary system "seemingly arbitrary and chaotic."

The NASS has proposed a plan to divide the country into four geographic regions and have regional primaries in March, April, May and June. The order of the regions would rotate every four years. But the plan would allow Iowa and New Hampshire to keep their preferred place in the calendar.

The NASS is trying to persuade the two major parties to adopt the plan and then use their leverage to get the states to concur.

The parties would penalize states that went outside the plan by not seating their Democratic and Republican delegates at the respective party conventions.

Given the number of state legislatures and the other urgent matters that legislators must contend with, it seems a difficult task for the NASS to succeed in its plan.

In the category of questions from genuinely puzzled readers, we’ve received several recently from people wondering about vice presidents.