Claim of citizenship for Obama dismissed by judge
By: Kieth Phucas, Staff Writer
10/28/2008
A lawsuit filed in federal court challenging Sen. Barack Obama's United States citizenship was dismissed Friday.
Federal Judge R. Barclay Surrick ruled the plaintiff, Lafayette Hill lawyer Philip J. Berg, lacked standing in the matter, and "as a result this court does not have jurisdiction in this case," the judge's legal analysis states.
Berg, who brought the suit in August, plans to appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, according to his Web site,
www.obamacrimes.com.
He was unable to be reached by phone for comment Monday.
Earlier this year, rumors began circulating about whether Obama was born Aug. 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii, as reported. In an effort to quell speculation, the senator's campaign posted a certificate of live birth on its Web site.
Berg's suit claims the Illinois senator was born in Kenya, not Hawaii, and therefore is not eligible to run for president. The action claims also that even if Obama did have U.S. citizenship, he gave it up when his mother remarried and moved to Indonesia with her son.
Berg requested expedited discovery to inspect a "vault" version of the senator's birth certificate. The Democratic National Committee and Federal Election Commission are also named as defendants in the legal action.
On Aug. 21, four days before the Democratic National Convention, Berg filed suit seeking to remove the Democratic candidate from the November ballot. The Lafayette Hill attorney asked the court for a temporary restraining order "prohibiting Obama from being formally confirmed as the Democratic Party nominee for president," according to court papers.
A month later, a lawyer representing Obama and the Democratic National Committee filed a joint motion in federal court to dismiss the lawsuit. The motion called the allegations "ridiculous and patently false," and argues the court lacks legal standing to challenge a presidential candidate's qualifications.
While Berg argued the case against Obama on constitutional grounds, in the motion to dismiss, Obama's attorney said the plaintiff must demonstrate a "specific and individualized injury" to prove standing in the case rather than a hypothetical one.
In a posting on his Web site dated Oct. 25, Berg questioned the judge's decision.
"This is a question of who has standing to uphold our Constitution," he wrote. "If I don't have standing, if you don't have standing, if your neighbor doesn't have standing to question the eligibility of an individual to be President of the United States - the Commander-in-Chief, the most powerful person in the world - then who does?"
Earlier this year, a similar suit brought against Republican presidential candidate John McCain and the Republican National Committee claimed that McCain wasn't a "natural born" citizen, having been born in the Panama Canal Zone while his father was serving in the military.
That suit was dismissed in July on grounds the plaintiff lacked standing in the case.
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