Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories

Questions and conspiracy theories about Barack Obama's citizenship, and other challenges to his eligibility to become President of the United States, have circulated before and after his victory in the US presidential election of 2008. A number of fringe activists, pundits and political opponents alleged that he was not a natural born citizen and so was not eligible to become President of the United States under Article Two of the U.S. Constitution. Claims about Obama's birthplace were addressed by the Director of the Hawaiian Department of Health who verified that the State had Obama's "original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures". The Obama campaign released a 2007 certified abstract copy of his Certification of Live Birth (sometimes called a "short form") that states Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, in 1961. A common complaint of those questioning Obama's eligibility is that he has not released a photocopy of his original, official certificate of live birth—only the shorter official summary certification. In support of that complaint, proponents seeking Obama's complete "long form" birth certificate point out that the state of Hawaii does not even accept it's own short form certificate (as provided by Obama) for some of Hawaii's own government eligibility issues.

Some of the people challenging Obama's eligibility have alleged that his short-form certificate was forged, or that he was born in Kenya. Others allege that Obama became a citizen of Indonesia, or that because he had dual citizenship at birth (British and US) he is not a natural-born citizen of the US. Individuals promoting eligibility claims have been dubbed "Birthers", drawing a parallel with 9/11 conspiracy theorists, who have been nicknamed "Truthers".

A number of lawsuits have been filed seeking to disqualify Obama from standing or being confirmed as President, or to obtain better proof that he is qualified. Three have been filed with the Supreme Court of the United States, and the Court has refused to hear them. None of the cases has prevailed in lower courts. Although Obama was duly confirmed as president-elect by Congress on January 8, 2009, and sworn in as President on January 20, litigation has continued after that date.

Early life of Barack Obama

Main articles: Early life and career of Barack Obama and Ann Dunham

Barack Obama was born at the Kapi'olani Medical Center for Women & Children in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Ann Dunham, an American from Wichita, Kansas, of mainly English descent. Obama's father was Barack Obama, Sr., a Luo from Nyang’oma Kogelo, Nyanza Province, Kenya.

Old friends in Washington State recall Obama's mother visiting them with her new baby in 1961. At some point, she gave her old friends the impression that she was on her way to visit her husband at Harvard (where he would not enroll until Fall of 1962). By January 1962, Obama's mother had enrolled at the University of Washington, and was living as a single mother in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle with her son, while her husband continued his studies in Hawaii.

After Obama's parents were divorced in 1964, his mother married Indonesian student Lolo Soetoro who was attending college in Hawaii. The family moved to Jakarta in Indonesia in 1967, where Obama attended a local public and a local Catholic school until he was ten years old. He then returned to Honolulu to live with his maternal grandparents, Madelyn and Stanley Dunham, and has resided permanently in the United States since 1971.

Citizenship facts, rumors and claims

Barack Obama's short-form Certification of Live Birth

During the Democratic Party's presidential primaries in 2008 and the subsequent presidential election, numerous chain e-mails circulated rumors about Obama's background.

Jim Geraghty of the conservative website National Review Online sparked further speculation when he asked that Obama release his birth certificate to disprove rumors that he was not a natural-born citizen qualified to stand for the Presidency. Geraghty wrote that releasing his birth certificate could also debunk several other rumors: that his middle name was originally Muhammad rather than Hussein; that his mother had originally named him "Barry" rather than "Barack"; and that his father had not really been Barack Obama, Sr. The Obama campaign responded in June 2008 by releasing his short-form birth certificate, and launching a website called "Fight the Smears" to counter what it described as a smear campaign against the candidate. Geraghty subsequently conceded: "there is no reason to think his [long-form] birth certificate would have any different data."

Claims that Obama was not born in Hawaii

"Fight the Smears" included a scanned image of Obama's Certification of Live Birth issued by the State of Hawaii's Department of Health in June 2007. The website declared:

Smears claiming Barack Obama doesn’t have a birth certificate aren’t actually about that piece of paper — they’re about manipulating people into thinking Barack is not an American citizen. The truth is, Barack Obama was born in the state of Hawaii in 1961, a native citizen of the United States of America.

The release of the certificate prompted a fresh round of conspiracy theorizing. Some critics asserted that the certificate had been digitally forged with Adobe Photoshop and lacked a stamped seal of the state and demanded that Obama release his original 1961 birth certificate. Jerome Corsi, author of the book The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality, told Fox News that "the campaign has a false, fake birth certificate posted on their website ... it's been shown to have watermarks from Photoshop. It's a fake document that's on the Web site right now, and the original birth certificate the campaign refuses to produce."

This view was rejected by the state authorities, the media and independent factchecking organizations. FactCheck.org was invited to view the Obama campaign's hard copy of the candidate's Certification of Live Birth and concluded:

[I]t meets all of the requirements from the State Department for proving U.S. citizenship. Claims that the document lacks a raised seal or a signature are false. We have posted high-resolution photographs of the document as "supporting documents" to this article. Our conclusion: Obama was born in the U.S.A. just as he has always said.

The director of Hawaii’s Department of Health, Chiyome Fukino, issued a statement confirming that the state held Obama's "original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures". Noting "there have been numerous requests for Sen. Barack Hussein Obama's official birth certificate", Fukino explained that the department was prohibited by state law from releasing it to "persons who do not have a tangible interest in the vital record." She stated: "No state official, including Gov. Linda Lingle, has ever instructed that this vital record be handled in a manner different from any other vital record in the possession of the State of Hawai'i."

The image posted online at Obama's website is known as a short-form birth certificate, and is different from a long-form. Obama's short form was laser-printed and certified by the State of Hawaii on June 6, 2007, as prima facie "evidence of the fact of birth in any court proceeding". Reportedly in response to concerns about what the original birth certificate says, a spokesperson for Hawaii's department of health said, "we are not allowed to confirm vital information and vital records." On another occasion, the same spokesperson for the state of Hawaii elaborated on state policy for the release of vital records: "If someone from Obama's campaign gave us permission in person and presented some kind of verification that he or she was Obama's designee, we could release the vital record." A hospital spokesperson at Kapi'olani Medical Center for Women & Children says that their standard procedure is to not confirm or deny that Obama was born there, citing federal privacy laws.

A birth notice for Barack Obama was published in two local newspapers in August 1961. Such notices were sent to newspapers routinely by the Hawaii Department of Health.

Claims that Obama is not "natural-born citizen" even if born in Hawaii

Some campaigners, such as Leo Donofrio, have asserted that Barack Obama is ineligible for the Presidency even if born in Hawaii. They argue that he held dual citizenship when born, or that he did not qualify for US citizenship in the first place due to his father not being a US citizen.

In August 2008, the Rocky Mountain News ran an online article asserting that Obama is both a US and a Kenyan citizen. This turned out to be incorrect. Although the paper published an apology for the mistake, it provided more fuel for online rumors about Obama's eligibility for the presidency. FactCheck noted that Obama had indeed been a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies by virtue of his descent from a Kenyan father at a time when Kenya was a British colony. However, Kenya's constitution prohibits dual citizenship in adulthood. Obama had therefore automatically lost his Kenyan citizenship at age 21, in 1982, by failing to formally renounce any non-Kenyan citizenship and swear an oath of allegiance to Kenya.

Philip Berg, who has brought lawsuits seeking to prevent the Electoral College being seated in the 2008 presidential election, also claims that Obama was adopted by Lolo Soetoro and thus Obama lost his U.S. citizenship. Obama was known as "Barry Soetoro" for a few years, after his stepfather Lolo Soetoro, when he lived in Indonesia as a child between 1967-1971.

Campaigners

A John McCain supporter questioning the legitimacy of Obama's birth certificate

Notable advocates of the view that Obama may not be eligible for the Presidency include Philip J. Berg, a Pennsylvania attorney and 9/11 conspiracy theorist; Berg describes himself as a "moderate to liberal" Democrat who backed Hillary Clinton for president. Another notable advocate is Alan Keyes, who was defeated by Obama in the 2004 Illinois US Senate election, and who describes himself as a "high-level Reagan era diplomat, a media personality and a conservative political activist." Other notable advocates include Andy Martin, a perennial candidate who was "widely credited with starting the cyberwhisper campaign" that Obama is a secret Muslim, and Bob Schulz, a tax protester and activist who placed full-page advertisements in the Chicago Tribune in December 2008 arguing that Obama had been born in Kenya or had subsequently renounced U.S. citizenship. The Constitution Party, a constitutionalist third party, is also campaigning for release of Obama's original long-form certificate.

The website AmericaMustKnow.com encouraged visitors to lobby members of the Electoral College to vote against Obama's confirmation as President and become so-called faithless electors. Electors around the country received numerous letters and e-mails contending that Obama's birth certificate is a forgery and that he was born in Kenya, and requesting that Obama should be denied the presidency. Some of the online campaigners coordinated their efforts with weekly conference calls, in which they discussed the latest news and how to advance the story.

The campaign has also been supported by the WorldNetDaily (WND) website, which sponsored a letter-writing campaign to the Supreme Court. WND's publisher Joseph Farah has written a number of editorials arguing that Obama's eligibility needs to be confirmed. The talk radio hosts Michael Savage, Brian Sussman, Lars Larson, Bob Grant, Jim Quinn, Rose Tennent and Mark Davis have all promoted the eligibility claims on their radio shows. Savage has asserted: "We're getting ready for the Communist takeover of America with a noncitizen at the helm."

The anti-Obama campaigners have not, however, been unanimous in their approach. For example, WorldNetDaily has been critical of Philip Berg's forgery claims, saying that a "WND investigation into Obama's [short form] birth certificate utilizing forgery experts ... found the document to be authentic." At the same time, WND has been urging Obama to release his original long-form certificate, and WND contends that "Hawaii at the time of Obama's birth allowed births that took place in foreign countries to be registered in Hawaii"; and a subsequent WND article seemed to backtrack on the earlier one, saying of the experts it had quoted earlier that "None of them could report conclusively that the electronic image was authentic or that it was a forgery." This apparent reversal prompted MSNBC's Keith Olbermann to declare WND's Joseph Farah to be his "Worst Person in the World" for January 5, 2009.

According to Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, "the birther movement has gained a large following on the radical right... it has been adopted by the most noxious elements out there." James von Brunn, charged as the gunman in the June 10, 2009 United States Holocaust Memorial Museum shooting, had previously posted messages to the Internet accusing Obama and the media of hiding documents about his life. Ben Smith of The Politico comments: "The penetration of the birther mythology into the violent fringe has to be a worry for the Secret Service, because at its heart, it's about denying Obama's legitimacy to hold the office of president."

Commentary and criticism

Critics have dubbed proponents of claims about Obama's eligibility as "Birthers", drawing a parallel with 9/11 conspiracy theorists or "Truthers". MSNBC political commentator Rachel Maddow defines a "Birther" as:

a specific new breed of American conspiracy theorists who believe that the real problem with Barack Obama being president is that he can't possibly have been born in the United States. He's not eligible to be president. The birth certificate is a fake. He's a foreigner. Once this has been exposed, I guess, he will be run out of the White House and exposed for the alien, communist, Muslim, gay, drug dealer, al Qaeda member that he is ...

A number of conservative commentators have strongly criticized the birth certificate theorists and their effect on the wider conservative movement. Columnist Michelle Malkin has written that "birth certificate hunters have lurched into rabid Truther territory" and that "they accuse anyone who disagrees with them of being part and parcel of the grand plan to install Emperor Obama and usurp the rule of law." At the same time, Malkin says that there "may be a seed of a legitimate constitutional issue to explore here" regarding the broader issue of how the citizenship requirement is enforced for presidential candidates. Michael Medved, a prominent conservative talk show host, has attacked birth certificate theorists as "crazy, nutburger, demagogue, money-hungry, exploitative, irresponsible, filthy conservative imposters" who are "the worst enemy of the conservative movement" and "make us look sick, troubled and not suitable for civilized company."

An editorial by the Honolulu Star-Bulletin dismissed some of the claims about Obama's eligibility as proposing "a vast conspiracy involving Obama's parents, state officials, the news media, the Secret Service, think tanks and a host of yet-to-be-uncovered others who have connived since Obama's birth to build a false record so that he could eventually seek the presidency 47 years later." The St. Petersburg Times' fact-checking website, PolitiFact.com, comments:

It is possible that Obama conspired his way to the precipice of the world's biggest job, involving a vast network of people and government agencies over decades of lies. Anything's possible. But step back and look at the overwhelming evidence to the contrary and your sense of what's reasonable has to take over. There is not one shred of evidence to disprove PolitiFact's conclusion that the candidate's name is Barack Hussein Obama, or to support allegations that the birth certificate he released isn't authentic. And that's true no matter how many people cling to some hint of doubt and use the Internet to fuel their innate sense of distrust.

Some commenters have raised questions about Obama's birth certificate, even while condemning the tactics of those people campaigning to have him declared ineligible. For example, social critic and feminist Camille Paglia argued in the magazine Salon:

I had thought for many months that the flap over Obama's birth certificate was a tempest in a teapot. But simple questions about the certificate were never resolved to my satisfaction. Thanks to their own blathering, fanatical overkill, of course, the right-wing challenges to the birth certificate never gained traction. But Obama could have ended the entire matter months ago by publicly requesting Hawaii to issue a fresh, long-form, stamped certificate and inviting a few high-profile reporters in to examine the document and photograph it. (The campaign did make the "short-form" certificate available to Factcheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.)

Paglia's argument that Obama should release a copy of the full, original 1961 certificate is perhaps the most common argument of people questioning Obama's eligibility; even if Obama were to oblige, the issue might not go away, in view of the fact that it was the Obama campaign's release of the short-form that "stoked the fever of conspiracy mongers," as Salon's Alex Koppelman put it. Factcheck.org notes, "The Hawaii Department of Health's birth record request form does not give the option to request a photocopy of your long-form birth certificate, but their short form has enough information to be acceptable to the State Department."

According to Salon, "almost all of the people who've been most prominent in pushing this story have a history of conspiracist thought." In response to the notion that Obama's grandparents might have planted a birth announcement in newspapers just so their grandson could someday be president, FactCheck suggested that "those who choose to go down that path should first equip themselves with a high-quality tinfoil hat." Brooks Jackson, the director of FactCheck, comments that "it all reflects a surge of paranoid distress among people who don't like Barack Obama" and who want the election results to go away. Chip Berlet, a journalist who has studied the spread of conspiracy theories, notes "For some people, when their side loses an election, the only explanation that makes sense to them – that they can cope with – is that sinister, bad, evil people arranged some kind of fraud." American political writer Dana Milbank, writing for the Washington Post, describes the Obama citizenship theories of Bob Schulz as "hysteria." Colorado elector Camilla Auger, responding to lobbying of members of the state's electoral college, commented: "I was concerned that there are that many nutty people in the country making depressing, absurd allegations. There are so many problems in the country right now, we need to work together."

In October 2008, the Orange County Register's OC Political Pulse poll found that a third of responding Republicans believed that Obama had been born outside the United States. As a result of the widespread publicity given to the citizenship controversy, 60% of respondents in an Ohio State University survey carried out in November 2008 had heard of the issue. However, only 10% believed the claims that Obama was not a citizen.

Litigation

A number of individuals have filed lawsuits seeking to have Obama disqualified from standing or being confirmed for the Presidency of the United States. By mid-December 2008, at least 17 lawsuits had been filed challenging Obama's eligibility in states including North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Hawaii, Connecticut, New Jersey, Texas and Washington state. No such suit has yet resulted in the grant of any relief to the plaintiffs by any court.

A major obstacle to such citizen suits has been lack of standing, as none of the plaintiffs were presidential candidates or presidential electors, with the exception of Alan Keyes. In addition, according to UCLA Law Professor Eugene Volokh, a legal challenge to Obama’s citizenship would have to establish not only that he was born outside the United States but also that Congress cannot retroactively make someone a citizen at birth. Volokh subsequently revisited and modified his position, saying that "the same rule that was in place in the early 1960s" is currently in place. The importance of the doctrine of standing was explained by Judge R. Barclay Surrick of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in dismissing one suit. He noted that one of the principal aims of the doctrine is to prevent courts from deciding questions "where the harm is too vague." This was especially true for a presidential election, where a disgruntled voter who suffered no individual harm "would have us derail the democratic process by invalidating a candidate for whom millions of people voted and who underwent excessive vetting during what was one of the most hotly contested presidential primary in living memory."

Despite setbacks, Gary Kreep, who heads the non-profit organization United States Justice Foundation and is involved in the lawsuits over Obama's eligibility, has declared that his group will "file suit to challenge each and every one of Obama's actions as president."

Berg v. Obama

On August 21, 2008, Pennsylvania attorney Philip J. Berg filed a complaint alleging that Obama was born in Kenya, not Hawaii, and was therefore a citizen of Kenya or possibly Indonesia, where he lived as a child. He alleged that the "Certification of Live Birth" on Obama's website is a forgery.

U.S. District Judge R. Barclay Surrick dismissed the complaint in October 2008, finding that Berg lacked standing to bring the case and that his attempts to gain standing to pursue his claim were "frivolous and not worthy of discussion." Bypassing the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, Berg filed a petition for a writ of certiorari before judgment in the United States Supreme Court. On December 10, 2008 the Supreme Court denied Berg's request for an injunction against the seating of the Electoral College, scheduled for December 15. On December 15, 2008, the petitioner refiled the application for injunction. Two days later, Berg's appeal was denied without comment by Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. Berg's previously denied request for an injunction was refiled with Justice Antonin Scalia on December 18, 2008. On January 12, the Supreme Court denied the petition for certiorari. The application for stay addressed to Justice Scalia and referred to the Court was also summarily denied on January 21, 2009.

Martin v. Lingle

On October 17, 2008, another lawsuit was filed in a state circuit court of Hawaii by Andy Martin, who was earlier declared by the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit as a "notoriously vexatious and vindictive litigator who has long abused the American legal system." Martin's lawsuit sought to order the state to release a copy of Sen. Obama's long-form birth certificate. The short-form birth certificate that the Obama campaign posted online states his place of birth as Honolulu, Hawaii.

The court denied Martin's petition, saying that Martin lacked "a direct and tangible interest in the record." The court cited Martin's lack of legal standing to obtain another person's birth document.

Donofrio v. Wells

Leo Donofrio, a retired lawyer from New Jersey, filed suit to challenge the eligibility of Obama, Republican presidential candidate John McCain and the Socialist Workers Party candidate Roger Calero. Donofrio asserted that all three candidates were ineligible: Obama due to having dual US and British nationality at birth (the latter via Obama's father), McCain due to being born in the Panama Canal Zone, and Calero due to allegedly still having Nicaraguan citizenship.

Donofrio was not among those who claimed Obama might have been born outside Hawaii. Also, Donofrio did not challenge the fact that Obama is a U.S. citizen and instead challenged only whether Obama is a natural-born citizen.

The case was referred to the Supreme Court by Justice Clarence Thomas. When the case reached the United States Supreme Court on December 8, 2008, the Court declined without comment to hear the case.

Justice Thomas's actions attracted interest from commentators who speculated that his referral of the case was some form of payback for a supposed snub by Obama. However, the Los Angeles Times commented that "[w]hen persistent litigants file motions with more than one justice, the court’s normal practice is to refer the matter to the full court." The leading treatise on U.S. Supreme Court practice, published long before this case, confirms that "it is ... the present practice for the Justice to whom a resubmission has been transmitted to refer the application to the entire Court for action." The case generated interest mostly on ideological political blogs and websites.

Wrotnowski v. Bysiewicz

On October 31, 2008, Greenwich resident and health food store owner Cort Wrotnowski filed a suit in the Connecticut Supreme Court challenging the authenticity of presidential candidate Obama's Hawaii birth certificate. The suit was dismissed after initial hearings.

Wrotnowski appealed to the US Supreme Court on November 25, contending that the British citizenship of Obama's father made the president-elect ineligible to assume office. Leo Donofrio, whose earlier case against Obama's eligibility had been turned down, assisted Wrotnowski's Supreme Court appeal. The request for stay or injunction was denied without comment on December 15, 2008. Thomas Goldstein, who has argued numerous cases before the court and covers Supreme Court cases, commented that "The law has always been understood to be, if you are born here, you're a natural born citizen. And that is particularly true in this case, when you have a U.S. citizen parent like Barack Obama's mother".

Keyes v. Bowen

Alan Keyes and Markham Robinson, chairman of the American Independent Party and a California candidate for president elector, filed a lawsuit on November 14, 2008 requesting that Obama provide documentation that he is a natural born citizen of the United States. Keyes also said in an interview that he would not be in favor of amending this requirement of the Constitution.

In another lawsuit, plaintiffs, including Keyes, subpoenaed a copy of Obama's birth certificate. The Hawaii health department denied that request citing confidentiality laws, and a state court dismissed the suit. Keyes asserts that statements by Obama's Kenyan grandmother "raise doubts as to whether Barack Obama is in fact a natural born U.S. citizen, eligible to be president, " although the full transcript of the interview indicates that Obama's grandmother did not raise doubts of his place of birth.

On March 13, 2009, California Superior Court Judge Michael P. Kenny issued a tentative ruling dismissing the case. The Court sustained, without leave to amend, Secretary Bowen's and Obama's demurrers on Keyes' petition for writ of mandate and granted Obama's motion to quash the subpoena. Keyes was found not to be entitled to the records he sought, thereby declaring the case moot.

Hollister v. Soetoro

On March 5, 2009, a lawsuit filed by Philip Berg on behalf of Gregory S. Hollister, a retired Air Force colonel, was dismissed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. The presiding judge, James Robertson, said the case was a waste of the court's time, calling Berg and another lawyer "agents provocateurs" and their local counsel, James Hemenway, "a foot soldier in their crusade." He ordered Hemenway to show cause why he should not pay the legal fees for Obama's attorney as a penalty for filing a complaint "for an improper purpose such as to harass."

Legislative initiatives and responses

The controversy over Obama's citizenship and eligibility for the presidency has prompted a number of Republican state and federal legislators to propose legislation aimed at requiring future presidential candidates to release copies of their birth certificates.

State legislatures

Oklahoma Republican state Representative Mike Ritze proposed a bill in December 2008 requiring any candidate for public office in Oklahoma to show proof of citizenship. Ritze declared that he "does not believe Obama submitted an authentic copy of his birth certificate." He also unsuccessfully approached Republican Senators Tom Coburn and James Inhofe to persuade them to mount a challenge to Obama's confirmation by Congress. The bill, House Bill 1329, was criticized by The Norman Transcript newspaper as "an outright attempt to embarrass President Barack Obama whose own citizenship was questioned, mostly by those pajama guerrillas trolling on the Internet."

In Tennessee, four Republican state Representatives — Stacey Campfield, Glen Casada, Frank S. Niceley and Eric H. Swafford — announced in February 2009 that they would be joining a legal action to force Obama to release his birth certificate and prove his citizenship. Casada, the Tennessee House Republican caucus chairman, said that he believes Obama has further proof of eligibility, and would like him to make it available: "Yes, people may say, you're just chasing some conspiracy theory... (but) it's a simple act on his part to just do, and we're done — move on." The alternative newspaper Nashville Scene described Swafford as joining a "wacky legal action" and quoted Tennessee house democrat Larry Miller as saying: "What is the mentality of these kind of people who continuously make these kind of goofy statements? It's embarrassing." Russian immigrant dentist Orly Taitz of California said she planned to file the suit, representing the "Defend Our Freedoms Foundation."

Fifteen Republican members of the Missouri House of Representatives sponsored an amendment to the Missouri Constitution in March 2009 that would require "candidates who are required by the Constitution of the United States to be natural born citizens" to provide a birth certificate to the Missouri Secretary of State to confirm their eligibility. A certificate of live birth would not be accepted. Failure to comply would result in the candidate being deemed ineligible to stand. The only political office to be affected would be the presidency, which is the only position for which there is a specific constitutional citizenship requirement. The proposed amendment is part of a "voter’s bill of rights," which would serve "as a defense against corruption, fraud, and tyranny." Political commentators interpreted the proposal as being "aimed at advancing the claims of the fringe movement that doubts President Barack Obama's eligibility to serve as president".

Congress

Some conspiratists also lobbied members of Congress to reject the Electoral College vote and block Obama's election as president in its sitting on January 8, 2009 to certify and tally the results of the election. Two Republican members of the House of Representatives, John Linder and Ron Paul, were heavily lobbied by activists who believed that the two lawmakers would be more willing than than other members of Congress to raise objections to Obama's confirmation. The lobbying was unsuccessful and Congress unanimously declared Obama to be the winner of the election.

In March 2009, Representative Bill Posey, a newly elected Republican from Florida's 15th congressional district, introduced a bill, H.R. 1503, in the U.S. House of Representatives. It would amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to require candidates for the Presidency "to include with the [campaign] committee's statement of organization a copy of the candidate's birth certificate" plus supporting documentation. As of March 13, 2009, the bill did not have any co-sponsors and was introduced without the Republican leadership being informed. Florida Today, the newspaper serving his constituency, commented that the bill "stems from fringe opponents of President Barack Obama who, during the 2008 election campaign, questioned whether Obama was born in Hawaii," but added that Posey's office "does not question Obama's citizenship." Posey explained his motivation as being to "prevent something like this [controversy] from happening in the future" by requiring "the birth certificate up front and take [the issue] off the table", but would not be drawn on whether or not he believed Obama was a citizen of the United States. His initiative was strongly criticized by Florida Democrats, who accused Posey of trying to "fan the rumors on the extreme fringe of the Republican Party" and "pandering to the right wing".</ref>

See also

• Birthright citizenship in the United States of America