The Supreme Court rejected an emergency appeal from a New Jersey man who claims President-elect Barack Obama is ineligible to be president because he was a British subject at birth.
The court without comment declined to hear Donofrio v. Wells, a lawsuit that had attempted to keep Obama off the New Jersey ballot.
Leo Donofrio of East Brunswick, New Jersey, had said that since Obama had dual nationality at birth because of his U.S.-born mother and Kenyan-born father, who was a British subject, he couldn’t be a “natural-born citizen,” one of the requirements the Constitution lists for eligibility to be president.
Donofrio also contends that Republican John McCain and Socialist Workers candidate Roger Calero are also not natural-born citizens and thus ineligible to be president.
Two more cases challenging Obama’s citizenship have reached the Supreme Court, though neither is scheduled for consideration, according to the Washington Post. And there are still more cases in lower courts.
Philip J. Berg of Lafayette Hill, Pennsylvania argues that Obama was born in Kenya, not Hawaii, as Obama says, and Hawaii officials have confirmed.
Deborah Creighton Skinner is the editorial director at BlackEnterprise.com