Pawlenty Promises To Appoint ‘Conservative Justices’ Who Will Ignore The 14th Amendment

By Ian Millhiser

The Constitution guarantees that all persons born in the United States are U.S. citizens withonly a handful of very rare exceptions. Nevertheless, in last night’s GOP candidate’s debate, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty criticized the Supreme Court for following the Constitution’s unambiguous language and promised to appoint justices who would strip many Americans of their citizenship:

This issue of birthright citizenship, again, brings up the importance of appointing conservative justices. That result is because the U.S. Supreme Court determined that that right exists, notwithstanding language in the Constitution. I’m the only one up here — I believe I’m the only one up here — whose appointed solidly, reliably conservative appointees to the court.

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Pawlenty would do well to actually pick up a copy of the Constitution before he pretends to know what it says. Under the 14th Amendment, “[a]ll persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” This language is unambiguous; it grants citizenship to all persons born in the US unless they are not subject to American “jurisdiction” — a very narrow exception that applies only to children of foreign diplomats and a handful of other people.

Moreover, the first Supreme Court decision recognizing birthright citizenship was hardly the product of excessive liberalism. The Court first acknowledged this right in an 1898 decision called U.S. v Wong Kim Ark. Three of the justices who joined the majority in Wong Kim Ark also voted with the majority in Lochner v. New York, an infamous Supreme Court decision holding that essential laws protecting workers from exploitation violate the Constitution. Five of the justices in the majority in Wong Kim Ark also voted to uphold Jim Crow in Plessy v Ferguson. So when Pawlenty promises to appoint justices who are more conservative than the ones in Wong Kim Ark, he is essentially calling for a Supreme Court that will immunize sweatshops from the law and uphold segregation.

Sadly, Pawlenty was not the only person on the stage to come out against the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. When asked whether he thinks the children of undocumented immigrants “should be considered a citizen of the United States,” former pizza executive Herman Cain replied, “I don’t believe so.”

Cain Trips Over The Constitution Again, Bungles The 14th Amendment At GOP Debate

By Travis Waldron

Former Godfather’s Pizza CEO and Republican presidential hopeful Herman Cain has had his struggles with the Constitution lately, confusing it and the Declaration of Independence, misunderstanding a clause about bankruptcy, andfailing to grasp the unconstitutionality of religious tests in determining someone’s fitness for employment.

At last night’s GOP primary debate in New Hampshire, Cain stretched his misunderstanding of the Constitution into a new subject: birthright citizenship and the 14th Amendment. During the debate, Cain said the law needed to be changed so children of undocumented immigrants were not granted citizenship upon birth. He elaborated on his position after the debate:

CAIN: The 14th Amendment doesn’t talk about people that were here illegally. The 14th Amendment applies to slaves, black people, and their descendants who were here.

REPORTER: So you’re suggesting that the 14th Amendment does not say that people who are born in this country are naturalized citizens?

CAIN: …It does say people who are born here. But when it was written, it was written in the spirit of the slaves who were brought to this country. It was not written in the spirit of people who came here illegally. That’s where I’m coming from.

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While the 14th Amendment was ratified following the Civil War and granted citizenship to blacks and former slaves who had previously not been considered citizens, its language in no way limits its protections to former slaves: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

The Supreme Court, meanwhile, has ruled that the amendment’s protections extend to anyone under the jurisdiction of the United States, even undocumented immigrants:

…the Fourteenth Amendment extends to anyone, citizen or stranger, who is subject to the laws of a State, and reaches into every corner of a State’s territory. That a person’s initial entry into a State, or into the United States, was unlawful, and that he may for that reason be expelled, cannot negate the simple fact of his presence within the State’s territorial perimeter. (Plyler v. Doe)

Cain said he did not believe in changing the 14th Amendment but wanted to change the law or add an amendment to clarify it, and he pleaded ignorance when asked if he’d support legislation proposed by Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY) and David Vitter (R-LA) that would significantlynarrow the amendment’s scope. But recent polling shows his view is out of touch with primary voters in New Hampshire, where 65 percent of Republicans prefer not to change America’s birthright citizenship laws.