CHICAGO - DECEMBER 09: (AFP OUT) President-elect Barack Obama makes a statement to reporters after a private meeting with Vice President-elect Joe Biden and former Vice President Al Gore at Obama's transition office on December 9, 2008 in Chicago, Illinois. An Obama spokesman said the three men discussed energy and climate change and how policies in those areas could help the economy. (Photo by Brian Kersey/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Barack Obama&2008 Getty
CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - Supreme Court rejects appeal questioning Obama's citizenship « - Blogs from CNN.com
From CNN Supreme Court Producer Bill Mears
WASHINGTON (CNN) — The Supreme Court has dismissed a second emergency appeal questioning Barack Obama's eligibility to be president because he had dual British-American citizenship at birth.
The justices without comment on Monday refused to intervene in the November 4 presidential election, dismissing the claims of Cort Wrotnowski, a resident of Greenwich, Connecticut.
In his appeal, Wrotnowski claimed that because Obama's father was a Kenyan-born British subject, the president-elect does meet the Constitution's requirement that the president be a "natural born citizen" of the United States. Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961. His mother was a U.S. citizen, born in the United States.
Many legal analysts questioned Wrotnowski's argument.
"The law has always been understood to be, if you are born here, you're a natural born citizen," said Thomas Goldstein, founder of the Scotusblog.com Web site and a lawyer who has argued numerous cases before the high court. "And that is particularly true in this case, when you have a U.S. citizen parent like Barack Obama's mother."
A similar appeal was rejected a week ago by the high court, from a retired lawyer in New Jersey.
In another lawsuit making its way through the courts, Philip Berg of Pennsylvania alleges the president-elect was actually born in Kenya. Berg claims Hawaiian officials will not let him see Obama's original birth certificate, although the campaign posted a copy of it online this summer, following numerous blog postings over the citizenship question. That case had previously been dismissed by lower federal courts.
The appeal rejected Monday is Wrotnowski v. Bysiewicz (08A469).
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