Posted: November 04, 2008
6:51 pm Eastern
© 2008 WorldNetDaily
U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter has rejected an emergency appeal for the court to halt the tabulation of the 2008 presidential election results until Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama documents his eligibility to run for the office, according to an attorney who brought the action that challenges the Illinois senator's standing in the race.
However, the issue isn't going away, at least for now, since Souter set a schedule for a response from Obama to the challenge from attorney Philip J. Berg.
As WND reported, Berg brought his claims to the Supreme Court after a federal judge dismissed his lawsuit alleging Obama is ineligible to be president because he possibly was born in Kenya.
The judge concluded Berg lacks standing to bring the action.
 Philip J. Berg |
The 34-page memorandum that accompanied the court order from Judge R. Barclay Surrick said ordinary citizens can't sue to ensure that a presidential candidate actually meets the constitutional requirements of the office.
Instead, Surrick said Congress could determine "that citizens, voters, or party members should police the Constitution's eligibility requirements for the Presidency," but that it would take new laws to grant individual citizens that ability.
"Until that time," Surrick says, "voters do not have standing to bring the sort of challenge that Plaintiff attempts to bring."
(Story continues below)
In a statement today, Berg said he was told by a clerk for Souter that his application for an injunction to stay the election was denied. But he also said the defendants "are required to respond to the Writ of Certiorari" by Dec. 1.
The questions over Obama's eligibility first got traction among Internet bloggers and later were heightened when several campaigns were launched to determine whether a "certificate of live birth" posted on the Internet by the Obama campaign was valid.
The issue gained more attention when Berg told radio talk show host Michael Savage he had an admission from Obama's grandmather that she was at his birth – in Kenya.
"This is a question of who has standing to stand up for our Constitution," Berg told Jeff Schreiber of America's Right blog. "If I don't have standing, if you don't have standing, if your neighbor doesn't have standing to ask whether or not the likely next president of the United States – the most powerful man in the entire world – is eligible to be in that office in the first place, then who does?"
But his discoveries only raised more questions.
The biggest question is why Obama, if a Hawaii birth certificate exists, simply hasn't ordered it made available to settle the rumors.
The governor's office in Hawaii said he had a valid certificate but rejected requests for access and left ambiguous its origin. Does the certificate on file with the Department of Health indicate a Hawaii birth or was it generated after the Obama family registered a Kenyan birth in Hawaii.
Obama's half-sister, Maya Soetoro, has named two different Hawaii hospitals where Obama could have been born.
As WND reported, Berg filed suit in U.S. District Court in August, alleging Obama is not a natural-born citizen and is thus ineligible to serve as president of the United States. Berg demanded that Obama provide documentation to the court to verify that the candidate was born in Hawaii, as Obama contends, and not in Kenya, as Berg believes.
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