UPDATE

Supreme Court his going to meet amongst themselves to decide whether to take this case. That should happen on December 5th. Four justices have to agree to take the case. It’s not over yet. They will probably require Obama to turn over the certificate to end the question.

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Philip J. Berg, owner of the website obamacrimes.com, will appeal his case to enforce the natural born citizen clause of the constitution against Barack Obama. His federal district court case over Obama’s birth certificate was dismissed by Federal Judge R. Barclay Surrick, on motion by Senator Obama, on grounds that Berg does not have standing as a U.S. citizen to enforce the natural born citizen clause of the constitution. Berg has motioned the Supreme Court for an injunction to stay the election until the case is decided.

So who does have standing to enforce the natural born citizen clause of the constitution? Standing is a confusing and difficult principle of jurisprudence. In a nutshell, standing requires that the person bringing a suit before the court to have an actual, or be in imminent danger of a specific and particular injury. There must be causation between the injury and the conduct of the defending party. The court must also be able to correct or redress the injury.

In Berg’s case, the court may have found a difficulty finding a specific injury. Berg’s claims of injury are really more abstract. Part of the principle of standing deals with the potential of case overload. Can you imagine if everyday citizens were allowed to sue George Bush for violating the war powers clause in Article 1 of the constitution, or the numerous other lawsuits that could be brought against him for what people perceive as violations of their constitutional rights.

Another good example of this standing issue is some of the recent 2nd amendment cases. In the DC handgun case, standing wasn’t granted to people who hadn’t been arrested. That’s right, merely having a law banning guns, violating your 2nd amendment rights, doesn’t injure you until you are actually arrested.

Clearly the courts have jurisdiction to hear cases arising from the constitution under article 3, section 2. Then who does have standing to bring a suit to enforce the natural born citizen clause? If Arnold Schwartzenegger runs for president in 2012, can he be stopped? The judge in the district court case said that ultimately it is congress that enforces this issue. To this judge, the natural born citizens clause is a collective right, not an individual right.

It is highly doubtful that congress would jump in against Barack Obama over his standing as a citizen. However, given the involvement of the court in Bush v. Gore, I imagine that if John McCain lost, he would have standing to challenge the election on natural born citizen grounds. I am sure that the courts would hear such a case. Other than that, I don’t see any other way to get it done. If any legal minds wish to opine otherwise, I welcome your thoughts.

Here is a link if you want to view the pleadings and findings filed in this matter.