92 republican congressmen are proposing legislation to revoke the "birthright citizenship" rule.
for the last 140 years anyone born within the borders of the u.s. is automatically a citizen, regardless of the citizenship or legal status of their parents. that's because of the first line of the fourteenth amendment which says: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." ever since the amendment has been passed, it has been consistently interpreted only one way: to require the u.s. government to extend citizenship to anyone born in the united states.
those 92 representatives want to interpret it differently than it always has been interpreted. (so much for the jurisprudence of original intent) though they argue that the words "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" could be interpreted to support their reinterpretation of the amendment, the judicial and not the legislative branch is the branch of government that has the power to interpret the constitution. the proposed legislative change is clearly unconstitutional.
if the legislative branch doesn't like the supreme court's interpretation of the constitution, they have to go through the trouble of amending the constitution. it's a hard process and, frankly, they have no realistic chance of getting such an amendment through. so instead they're trying to cheat by claiming the right to reinterpret the existing constitutional language.
it won't work. not too long ago, the supreme court struck down congress' effort to reinterpret the free exercise clause of the first amendment by legislation. even the dissenters in that decision thought congress had no power to interpret the constitution differently than the courts.
this really is a no-brainer. the legislation to redefine the 14th amendment will not work. and yet somehow it doesn't surprise me at all that these guys are embracing a clear loser just to make some political hay
(LA Times article via bitch phd)
