We grew up hearing one version of a president's reaction to a supreme court decision, but the New Georgia Encyclopedia sets the record straight in Worcester v. Georgia (1832):
(Although Jackson is widely quoted as saying, "John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it," his actual words to Brigadier General John Coffee were: "The decision of the supreme court has fell still born, and they find that it cannot coerce Georgia to yield to its mandate.")
Nonetheless, the sentiment is the same, as Sustain Atlanta noted in Remembering the Time Andrew Jackson Decided to Ignore the Supreme Court In the Name of Georgia’s Right to Cherokee Land.
The desire by a president to trample on the Constitution is nothing new, though like Jackson's response to Worcester, President Trump's desire to void the 14th Amendment is unsettling.
You'd think that Minnesota Republican gubernatorial candidate Jeff Johnson would either go big with Trump or get out, but instead Minnesotans get silence.
St. Paul Pioneer Press political reporter Dave Orrick reports in Minnesota governor candidates weigh in on 'birthright' issue:
Democrat Tim Walz said this in a statement to the St. Paul Pioneer Press: “The president does not have the right to change the constitution. As I travel across the state, I hear from Minnesotans who are fed up with the politics of fear and division. They are ready for a new approach — one where we put effectiveness over ideology, patriotism over partisanship, and hope over fear.”
Walz was referring to Trump’s notion that he could end “birthright citizenship” with the stroke of his pen, via an executive order. Most legal scholars, as well as Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, say the president doesn’t have such power.
Republican Jeff Johnson, whose candidacy has been endorsed by Trump, wouldn’t say Tuesday what he thinks.
“Jeff does not wish to comment on that issue at this time,” spokeswoman Christina Ridgeway said.
Such courage from a person from the party pushing the phrase "rule of law" in Minnesota's statewide races.
On the New York Times' opinion page, historian Eric Foner observes in Donald Trump’s Unconstitutional Dreams:
In an interview with the news program “Axios on HBO,” President Trump announced that he plans to issue an executive order ending birthright citizenship, the principle that everyone born in the United States, with a handful of exceptions, is automatically a citizen of the United States.
“It was always told to me,” the president declared, “that you needed a constitutional amendment. Guess what? You don’t.”
In fact, such an order would undoubtedly be unconstitutional. It would also violate a deeply rooted American idea — that anybody, regardless of race, religion, national origin, or the legal status of one’s parents, can be a loyal citizen of this country.
Birthright citizenship is established by the Civil Rights Act of 1866, still on the books today, and by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, ratified two years later. The only exceptions, in the words of the amendment, are persons not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States. Members of Congress at the time made clear that this wording applied only to Native Americans living on reservations — then considered members of their own tribal sovereignties, not the nation — and American-born children of foreign diplomats. (Congress made all Native Americans citizens in 1924.) ...
Foner and others have fact-checked Trump's statement that only the United States confers "birthright citizenship" status to all children born here. In fact, Canada, Mexico and other nations do. Via Minnesota Public Radio, here's the AP fact check: Trump off track on birthright citizenship:
President Donald Trump has astonished legal scholars with his claim that he can end birthright citizenship with a swipe of his pen. No, they say, he can't.
Trump also went far off track in asserting that the U.S. is the only country that automatically grants citizenship to anyone born in the country. Many do. . . .
Trump: "We're the only country in the world where a person comes in, has a baby and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States for 85 years with all of those benefits. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. And it has to end."
The facts: That's flat-out wrong.
The U.S. is among about 30 countries where birthright citizenship — the principle of jus soli or "right of the soil" — is applied, according to the World Atlas and other sources. Most are in the Americas. Canada and Mexico are among them. Most other countries confer citizenship based on that of at least one parent — jus sanguinis, or "right of blood" — or have a modified form of birthright citizenship that may restrict automatic citizenship to children of parents who are on their territory legally.
More broadly, Trump's view that U.S.-born children of foreigners live a lifetime of taking "all those benefits" ignores the taxes they pay, the work they do and their other contributions to society.
The AP Fact Check cites a Trump-appointed judge:
James Ho, a conservative Trump-appointed federal appeals court judge, wrote in the Green Bag legal journal in 2006 that birthright citizenship "is protected no less for children of undocumented persons than for descendants of Mayflower passengers."
Why is Johnson silent? Is he afraid to ruffle the feathers of extremists who carry on about "anchor babies"?
Photo: We're surprised too, baby.
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