Fun fact: Kamala Devi Harris is named after a pagan Hindu demon that is devoted to war and blood sacrifices. Another fun fact: Kamala Iyer Harris (her legal name on her birth certificate) is not a natural-born citizen of the United States, and therefore is not constitutionally eligible to run for President.
A New York attorney has filed a lawsuit to have Kamala Harris kicked off the ballot in his state in November because she is not constitutionally qualified to be president. That case is being appealed to the US Supreme Court to ask for an emergency hearing ahead of the 2024 election.
Attorney Montgomery Sibley sued the Co-Executive Director of the New York Board of Elections, Kristen Zebrowski Stavisky, earlier this year to kick Kamala off the ballot. We’ve been watching this case and several others like it but waiting to see if they go anywhere before reporting them to you. In Sibley’s case, there’s been a big development.
On August 20th, New York Supreme Court Justice Christopher P. Baker dismissed the case without granting Sibley a proper hearing. That was a huge legal mistake. Judge Baker then quickly rescheduled a hearing for Sibley on August 29th. That hearing did take place as scheduled, but the judge refused to reverse his dismissal which had been made in error.
Sibley will be filing an emergency petition for certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court this week. This age-old constitutional question that America has grappled with for hundreds of years may finally be answered this year.
The term “citizen” is used 21 times in the Constitution. The term “natural born citizen” is only used once—in Article II, Section 1, clause 5 which describes the qualifications to be President. It seems obvious that the Founding Fathers meant something different between the terms “citizen” and “natural born citizen.”
The prevailing legal document in the 18th century that the Founders would have relied on for that term was The Law of Nations by Emerich de Vattel, published in 1758. Chapter 19 states, “The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens.”
Under this legal theory, there are three criteria a person must meet to be a natural born citizen. They must be born “in the country,” as in, within the physical territory of the 50 US states; their mother must be a US citizen at the time of their birth; and their father must be a US citizen at the time of their birth.
Kamala Devi Harris fails two of those three criteria. Both her parents were in America on student visas when she was born. At the time of her birth, neither one of them had been in the country long enough to become a US citizen. She is not a natural born citizen. Period.
This isn’t just a partisan question that we want to see answered because a Kamala Harris presidency would be so incredibly awful for America. The natural born citizen question is a huge issue for Republicans as well.
John McCain became the Republican nominee in 2008. He was the child of two US citizens, but he was born in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936. He wasn’t a natural born citizen, and there were many scholarly legal articles published at the time making this argument. (The same legal scholars were oddly quiet about Barack Obama’s origins.)
In 2016, we had three Republican candidates who were not natural born citizens: Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Bobby Jindal. In 2024, Republicans had two candidates who didn’t meet the qualifications. Vivek Ramaswamy even admitted to NBC News, when he was pressed on the question, that he is an anchor baby. Nikki Haley, who is not a natural born citizen under the legal definition, also ran for president (speaking of blood sacrifice demons).
So, this is an important constitutional question that the Supreme Court finally has the opportunity to answer this year. Did the Founding Fathers have a higher standard that they intended for a person to be President of the United States? Or can any old foreigner with dual citizenship and dual loyalties with another nation be our President? The British people are going through that experiment right now and it’s not working out well for them.
We’ll keep you posted on whether the Supreme Court agrees to hear Shipley’s appeal this fall.
