Native and Natural Born Citizenship Explored (Re-opened for limited business)

In a recent lawsuit Kerchner v Obama, the plaintiffs suggest that their 1st amendment right to petition the government for redress of grievances implies that the government has a duty to act upon said petition. In fact, the limited legal history shows this to be in error:

The direct appeal and individualized response that once marked petitioning belong to a more organic past when leaders knew petitioners by name. No branch of the government today is equipped to provide such personal attention. The right to petition, however, requires only that the state receive complaints and grievances, not that it respond to them. Historical practice aside, as the Court explained in Minnesota Board for Community Colleges v. Knight (1984): “[N]othing in the First Amendment or in this Court’s case law interpreting it suggests that the rights to speak, associate, and petition require government policymakers to listen or respond to individuals’ communications on public issues.“

Even if the “redress” dimension of the petition clause merely expresses the hope of government response, the very act of channeling popular opinion for public officials serves important societal goals. It creates an information flow from the public to the government, and serves as a safety valve for public passions.

Yet despite its social benefits, the First Amendment right of petition has not been developed as a doctrine or championed as a cause. Few scholars or courts have fully appreciated the importance of the right to petition and its more contemporary applications.

Source: First Amendment Center

Kerchner argues

207. Congress’s inaction, bias toward Obama, and indifference toward plaintiff’s and many other concerned Americans’ grievances concerning whether Obama is an Article II “natural born Citizen,” which is a matter of grave national concern and which continues to be a subject of great public debate and litigation, made a law or rule ipso facto abridging the right of the plaintiff to petition his government for the redress of grievances, and thus violated the plaintiff’s rights under the First Amendment.

So let’s follow the cases mentioned and see if there is any foundation to this claim:

However wise or practicable various levels of public participation in various kinds of policy decisions may be, this Court has never held, and nothing in the Constitution suggests it should hold, that government must provide for such participation. In Bi-Metallic the Court rejected due process as a source of an obligation to listen. Nothing in the First Amendment or in this Court’s case law interpreting it suggests that the rights to speak, associate, and petition require government policymakers to listen or respond to individuals’ communications on public issues. Indeed, in Smith v. Arkansas State Highway Employees, 441 U.S. 463, 464 -466 (1979), the Court rejected the suggestion. No other constitutional provision has been advanced as a source of such a requirement. Nor, finally, can the structure of government established and approved by the Constitution provide the source. It is inherent in a republican form of government that direct public participation in government policy making is limited. See The Federalist No. 10 (J. Madison). Disagreement with public policy and disapproval of officials’ responsiveness, as Justice Holmes suggested in Bi-Metallic, supra, is to be registered principally at the polls. [465 U.S. 271, 286]

Source: MINNESOTA BD. FOR COMMUNITY COLLEGES v. KNIGHT, 465 U.S. 271 (1984)

But the First Amendment does not impose any affirmative obligation on the government to listen, to respond or, in this context, to recognize the association and bargain with it. 2

Source: SMITH v. ARKANSAS STATE HIGHWAY EMPLOYEES, 441 U.S. 463 (1979)

But it does not end here

Plaintiff thus succeeded in “petitioning” the voters; he simply failed to persuade them. Under these circumstances, it is apparent that no First Amendment violation occurred. See, e.g., Minnesota Board for Community Colleges v. Knight, 465 U.S. 271, 288 (1984) (“A person’s right to speak is not infringed when government simply ignores that person while listening to others.”) (footnote omitted); San Filippo v. Bongiovanni, 30 F.3d 424, 437 (3d Cir. 1994) (“the petition clause does not require the government to respond to every communication that the communicator may denominate a petition”); Cecelia Packing Corp. v. United States Dep’t of Agriculture, 10 F.3d 616, 623 (9th Cir. 1993) (“The First Amendment guarantees the right to participate in the political process; it does not guarantee political success.“) (quoting Badham v. Eu, 694 F. Supp. 664, 675 (N.D. Cal. 1988), aff’d, 488 U.S. 1024 (1989)).

Source: Andrew TEMPELMAN, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. Robert PHILBRICK, Defendant, Appellee., 43 F.3d 1456 (1st Cir. 1994)

Now I am not a lawyer and yet it took me less than 30 minutes to track this information down.