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Birther Legislation is spreading all over the country.

 

Arizona Legislature OKs Presidential ‘Birther’ Bill

Apr 15, 2011 – 1:56 AM

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Jacques Billeaud

AP

PHOENIX – The Arizona Legislature gave final approval late Thursday night to a proposal that would require President Barack Obama and other presidential candidates to prove they are U.S. citizens before their names can appear on the state’s ballot.Arizona would become the first state to require such proof if Gov. Jan Brewer signs the measure into law.

Republican Rep. Carl Seel of Phoenix, the author of the bill, said the bill wasn’t about opposition to Obama. “This bill is about the integrity of our elections,” Seel said.

Thirteen other states have considered similar proposals this year. The proposals were defeated in Arkansas, Connecticut, Maine and Montana.

The bill won final approval from the state House in a 40-16 vote.

So-called “birthers” contend since the last presidential election that Obama is ineligible to hold the nation’s highest elected office because, they argue, he was actually born in Kenya, his father’s homeland. The Constitution said a person must be a “natural-born citizen” to be eligible for the presidency.

Hawaii officials have repeatedly confirmed Obama’s citizenship, and his Hawaiian birth certificates have been made public. Even though the courts have rebuffed lawsuits challenging Obama’s eligibility, the issue hasn’t gone away.

“It’s a fringe issue in my view, and it’s going to cause people to look again at Arizona and say what’s all this craziness going on there,” said Democratic Rep. Daniel Patterson of Tucson, an opponent of the bill.

The Arizona proposal would require political parties and presidential candidates to hand in affidavits stating a candidate’s citizenship and age and to provide the candidate’s birth certificate and a sworn statement saying where the candidate has lived for 14 years.

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If candidates don’t have a copy of their birth certificates, they could meet the requirement by providing baptismal or circumcision certificates, hospital birth records and other documents.

If it can’t be determined whether candidates who provided documents in place of their birth certificates are eligible to appear on the ballot, the secretary of state would be able to set up a committee to help determine whether the requirements have been met.

The names of candidates can be kept off the ballot if the secretary of state doesn’t believe the candidates met the citizenship requirement.

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The Arizona Sentinel

In an interview a few years ago, while running for Governor, Bruce Olsen said, "We are running out of time. I’m convinced I can work with other governors to save our Republic. I have a plan, should our country fall apart. We must be prepared. It’s important that our people become debt free. I am also hoping to change the way we title property. We must see to it that Americans actually own what they pay for. One more thing. We must learn that the individuals that our media promotes for elected office, are the ones we must run from." Bruce Olsen lives in Arizona and shares from The Arizona Sentinel. His main site went down in 2016 and this link contains some of his earlier work. You can still see some of his more recent work via Constitutional Liberty Coalition.