For the week of November 19 - 24, 2003

Arnie a constitutional pioneer, too?

Commentary by Pat Murphy

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Just a hunch, but with Austria-born California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger dazzling the political gentry with his stunning political victory, watch for a renewed push to amend the Constitution to permit foreign-born citizens to run for president.

Right now, Article II, Section 1 declares, "No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President. . . ."

The passage should’ve been amended out long ago. Touting ourselves as a land of opportunity and gatekeeper to the world’s friendliest open door for immigrants, it’s an utter anachronism to ban non-native citizens from aspiring to the supreme achievement in citizenship. The percentage of U.S. residents born abroad increases every year, now totaling nearly 12 percent of the population.

The time is ripe and certainly more sensible than proposed amendments that recur regularly—requiring a balanced budget (unenforceable), prohibiting gay marriage, criminalizing abuse of Old Glory, returning to the gold standard.

Groping charges aside, Schwarzenegger symbolizes the fabled American dream—a penniless immigrant bootstrapping himself to the heights of film stardom, creating a self-made fortune in the hundreds of millions of dollars, marrying into the quintessentially legendary Kennedy family, plus crushing an experienced Democratic politician the first time out.

An argument can be made that many of the Schwarzenegger-type immigrants among us have more impressive credentials for the presidency than others catapulted into the Oval Office less for skills than family connections or party politics.

(Interestingly, the 1964 presidential election involved a candidate technically not born in the United States: Republican Barry Goldwater was born in Phoenix in 1909, three years before the Arizona territory became a state.)

The ban on non-native born Americans becoming president was born of 1770s colonists fears that the British would plant one of their own to sabotage the young new American government.

Foreign-born naturalized citizens have permeated U.S. society as symbols of power and influence, and proven their worth in music, entertainment, science, industry, arts, literature, fashions, architecture, philanthropy, medicine, finance, aerospace, academia, politics, diplomacy and the military.

Access to national secrets has been accorded to foreign-born Americans. Poland native Zbigniew Brzezinski was President Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser. Czechoslovakia native Madeline Albright was Bill Clinton’s secretary of State. Born in Poland, four-star Gen. John Shalikashvili was chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. German Wernher von Braun charted the course for U.S. space flights.

Congress is sprinkled with foreign-born members. Men and women from a rainbow of countries, too, populate the military.

Sure, with the horror of 9/11 imprinted on the national conscience, some will argue the nation’s highest office shouldn’t be trusted to a foreigner.

But that ignores how native-born Americans have abused the highest office—the self-styled super patriot Richard Nixon, who resigned in disgrace, and Bill Clinton, who pandered to his eroticism in the sanctity of the Oval Office.

 

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