We know the states challenge to ObamaCare is going to the Supreme Court and now the Supreme Court is going to "conference" again to decide if they should hear arguments on Obama's eligibility to hold the office of President. So What are the odds SCOTUS will rule against Obama's eligibility and rule against ObamaCare? Here are my predictions. 1) Rule Against ObamaCare: 80% 2) Rule To Hear Arguments on Eligibility: 50% 3) If #2 is Yes, Then Rule Obama Ineligible: 20%
Unlikely that the court is going to rule Obama is currently ineligible. I doubt that the court is going to want to throw the entire country at this particular time into a state of chaos that would follow such a decision. Possible, but unlikely. Obamacare? Read enough Constitutional scholars, and there are opinions on both sides of the argument...it is a right wing court that favors corporations, so they may vote in favor of the health care corporations. Recent votes of this right wing leaning court have shown that corporations are being granted status not found directly in the Constitution. The issue of state being able to require a particular test of eligibility for a federal election deviating from one state to another state is a question going forward, and it is a dicey proposition. If one state gets to have a test of eligibility, then a state could require that a federal candidate be a Christian to get on the ballot. The only real test of eligibility has to be what the Constitution says about the status of "natural born" citizen, and there are different reads on that by different constitutional scholars. At the time of the election, the other states accepted Hawaii's eligibility standards...but after Obama was elected, the birthers did not like the results, so they are seeking to set a different standard of eligibility requirements than Hawaii was comfortable with. Would the birthers have done so if McCain had been elected, as there are some who question McCain's eligibility? I think you could set a standard going forward for new births, meaning that all new births had to follow some standard format to validate requirements of citizenship as it relates to the presidency, but to force standards upon all states when those states did not perhaps have the same exact methods in place decades ago seems unreasonable. The real problem is that in a digital age where nearly anything can be faked...who is going to be the agreed upon expert to verify any documentation? I've asked this question many times to birthers, and they won't answer the question: If a long form birth certificate that they talk about appears, someone claims to find it in some filing cabinet in Hawaii (or so the person who finds it claims) and if some official in Hawaii certifies that it is the real article...does that settle the debate? I would say no, because the birthers are going to claim the found long form birth certificate is not genuine. So who is the person or persons, who are the experts who are going to be designated as the expert witnesses to verify that the long form birth certificate is real or fake? How are we going to settle who is the expert in determining what is real and what is fake in a digital world...and could such experts be "bought off" or politically influenced to sway their opinion? We have already seen our country go to war on the basis of false documentation, presented at the UN by the secretary of state by a "trusted" person. So how are we to know that something is real? We might have a chance to develop some way of making new birth certificates digitally signed in some way to prevent forgery...but how to verify 40 and 50 year old documents when experts might differ in opinion, or might be influenced in their opinions because of some powerful people want a predetermined outcome? History has shown us that fake evidence can be used to get us into war, create financial crisis, etc. How are the birthers ever going to really know and or believe that Obama is a US citizen? I can't see any documentation being produced that would solve this problem, because any documentation that goes against their position would be decried as fake documentation.
If SCOTUS "rules he is eligible".. but does so without a proper birth certificate (a political play, surely)... could states still require a proper birth certificate to be placed on the ballot?
I don't know how they could do that. I also don't think that ruling would preclude states from requiring proof of birth to get on the ballot. I'm also sure that would wind up in the courts, too.