McCain Sorta Kinda Can’t Be President

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According to the U.S. Constitution, the President must be a natural born citizen. Technically, John McCain isn’t.

McCain was born August 29, 1936 at Coco Solo Naval Air Station in the Panama Canal Zone. He wasn’t born in the U.S., and, at the time of his birth, children born in the Panama Canal Zone to American parents didn’t automatically get American citizenship.

In 1937, Congress enacted a law conferring citizenship on the children of American parents born in the Canal Zone after 1904. Legally speaking, McCain became a U.S. citizen just before his first birthday.

Prof. Gabriel J. Chin, according to a New York Times article this morning, has pointed out that the technicality may be enough to make McCain ineligible for the presidency.

Last April, the Senate passed a nonbinding resolution that declared McCain is eligible to be president. It’s likely that no one will protest, but people born in the Canal Zone while it was under American jurisdiction have been convicted of being in the US illegally and been deported. It’s a bit of a double standard.