Obama Eligibility Controversy

This Primer introduces and explains the Obama Eligibility Controversy, in question-and-answer format, for a non-technical general audience. We’ve double-checked the facts presented here, and we’ve cited the sources of each fact.

Questions and Answers

1. What is a “birther”?
2. What are the eligibility requirements for President?
3. Why do birthers think Barack Obama is not eligible to be President?
4. How is “natural born citizen” defined?
5. In a nutshell, what is the Obama eligibility controversy?
6. Does the birthers’ viewpoint have any historical or legal merit?
7. What was the original purpose of the presidential “natural born citizen” requirement?
8. What is the difference between a “Constitutional” and a “statutory” natural born citizen?
9. Wouldn’t the most recent modern-day statutory meaning of “natural born citizen” take precedence over the original Constitutional meaning?
10. If Obama is not a “Constitutional natural born citizen”, so what? Why should anyone care?
11. Why has every birther lawsuit been dismissed?
12. What is a 14th Amendment natural born citizen?
13. In the 14th Amendment, what does “jurisdiction” mean?
14. Doesn’t the Wong Kim Ark decision make Obama a “natural born citizen”?
15. Doesn’t the Julia Lynch case show that Obama is a “natural born citizen”?
16. Could “natural born citizen” be based on the British Common Law principle of jus soli?
17. What’s the “beef” with President Obama’s birth certificate?
18. Didn’t the State of Hawaii recently verify that President Obama was born in Hawaii?
19. Doesn’t the mere existence of Barack Obama’s original Hawaiian birth certificate prove that he was born in Hawaii?
20. If President Obama’s birth certificate shows conclusively that he was born in Hawaii, would it end the eligibility controversy?
21. Where do we go from here?