Campaign 2050

It seems that Annika's eventual run for the United States Presidency may be in question. According to the U.S. Constitution, Article II, Section I, "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." As a family, we agreed that "natural born citizen" means a person who was born into their citizenship by rights. Even though Annika was born in China, she fully qualified for citizenship, and as such she is a natural born citizen.

Well, not according to her Uncle Ben. He did some extra research, and uncovered the following:

"Persons born abroad who acquire U.S. citizenship at birth by statute generally have the same rights and are subject to the same obligations as citizens born in the United States who acquire citizenship pursuant to the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. One exception is that they may be subject to citizenship retention requirements. [But] it has never been determined definitively by a court whether a person who acquired U.S. citizenship by birth abroad to U.S. citizens is a natural-born citizen within the meaning of Article II of the Constitution and, therefore, eligible for the Presidency. ... The Constitution does not define "natural born".

Taken from the U.S. Department of State Foreign Affairs Manual Volume 7 - Consular Affairs, a document Dave will certainly have memorized within a year of his joining the Foreign Service. I place our campaign in the hands of her father, the future Ambassador to China, and her Uncle Ben, the future partner at Chicago's most prestigious law firm. Between the two of them, I trust that her candidacy will be in good hands.