The folks who claim to want to Make America Great Again seem to have a pretty low opinion of some Americans. Guess which ones?
A House bill by Rep. Johnny Garrett, (R) Goodlettesville, would effectively bar from federal office anyone from Tennessee who is not a “natural-born citizen of the United States.” It defines that as someone “born in the United States or born abroad to parents who are United States citizens.”
In case you miss the point, Garrett summed up his goal this way for The Tennessean: “There will never be an Ilhan Omar representing the Volunteer State.”
Omar, originally from Somalia, is a tried-and-true boogeywoman for MAGA. She’s a naturalized citizen who represents Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District. She is also a Muslim, a Democrat and a dark-skinned woman disinclined to keep her progressive views quiet. There is much there for Republicans to dislike, and they very much do.
After a kook tried to attack her in a town-hall meeting last week by spraying her with some liquid – apple-cider vinegar, apparently – the MAGA in chief offered no sympathy.
“She probably had herself sprayed, knowing her,” President Donald Trump said to ABC News.
Lest anyone miss the connection between Omar and his bill, on his Facebook page announcing it Garrett included an image of Omar wearing a hijab, smiling and holding a microphone. She looks downright amiable.
Maybe he should have drawn horns on her. That seems to have been the intent.
I’m not going to defend Omar’s politics specifically. It’s safe to say that she holds some views that don’t align with mine. But to assign second-class citizenship status to someone who made the considerable effort to become naturalized seems … un-American, to say the least.
As a commenter wrote on Garrett’s post: “Citizenship is not a tiered existence. Whether you were born here or were naturalized, a citizen is a citizen and they are afforded all the rights and privileges of citizenship. Period.”
And while the U.S. Constitution requires that presidents and vice presidents be “natural-born” citizens, there is no such stipulation for members of Congress.
By my count the current Congress has two naturalized senators (one Republican, one Democrat) and 15 House members (four Republicans and 11 Democrats). Garrett, a lawyer by profession, sees no constitutional impediment to his effort to change that situation, because he worded it to address primary candidates for political parties.
“It is fully within the bounds of the Constitution for states to decide on candidate qualifications for nominating parties in primary elections,” he told The Tennessean.
Is it?
In a 1995 decision involving 22 states that had placed term limits on senators and representatives, U.S. Term Limits Inc. v. Thornton, the Supreme Court held that “the Framers decided that the qualifications for service in the Congress of the United States be fixed in the Constitution and be uniform throughout the Nation.”
The majority opinion, by Justice John Paul Stevens, went further: “In the absence of a properly passed constitutional amendment, allowing individual States to craft their own qualifications for Congress would thus erode the structure envisioned by the Framers.”
That decision was 5-to-4, and the entire court has turned over since then, with the exception of Justice Clarence Thomas. And Thomas was one of the four who opposed the decision. I suspect that he would be happy at a second chance to “erode the structure envisioned by the Framers.”
Garrett indicated to The Tennessean that he would like to see his citizenship standard applied to state offices, as well. Meanwhile, he’s focusing on the government level he wants to occupy next: He’s running for Congress from the 6th District, to succeed John Rose, who has decided he’d rather be governor.
The legislature Garrett occupies at the moment has a passel of bills that focus on cracking down on immigrants who are here illegally. But as his bill shows, Republicans don’t like the immigrants who are here legally, either, unless they fit a certain profile.
Like, say, by being married to the president.
Joe Rogers is a former writer for The Tennessean and editor for The New York Times. He is retired and living in Nashville.