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LAW OFFICES OF
MARIO APUZZO
Attorney at Law
185 Gatzmer Avenue
Jamesburg, New Jersey 08831(732) 521-1900
FAX (732) 521-3906Email [email protected]
August 8, 2012
Mark Neary, Clerk
Supreme Court of New Jersey
Hughes Justice Complex
25 W. Market Street
P.O. Box 970
Trenton, New Jersey 08625-0970
Re: Nicholas E. Purpura et al. v. Barack Obama
Docket No.: 070152
Dear Honorable Justices of the New Jersey Supreme Court:
Respondents do not offer any substantive argument
contradicting petitioners petition. We have shown that our petition
presents questions of general importance which have not been but
which should be settled by the Supreme Court and that the interest
of justice requires that the Supreme Court grant certification. A
democratic majority does not have the constitutional right to elect a
President who is not constitutionally eligible. Hence, whether a
person running for President is an Article II natural born Citizen
and constitutionally eligible for that office is a question of great
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public importance. What role the State of New Jersey through the
Secretary of State (SOS) has in vetting candidates who are
running for the Office of President is also a question of great public
importance. Whether New Jersey is responsible for determining
the eligibility of its presidential candidates is a significant question
for the state to answer. For sure, how best to protect the integrity of
New Jersey elections for the Office of President is a question of
great public importance to the State of New Jersey, which is
guaranteed by Article IV, Section 4 of our Constitution a republican
form of government. Barack Obama (Obama) and the SOS have
not shown why such questions are not of public importance or why
the Supreme Court should not settle them. These questions and
their answers are special reasons enough for this Court to grant
certification.
Obama calls petitioners arguments recycled arguments
and failed theories without showing how their arguments are
wrong. BORb3.1
Obama fails to show how petitioners arguments
are simply application of established principles to the facts of a
certain case. Id. The SOS does not show how the election law
1BORb3 means Barack Obama respondents brief at page 3.
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issues raised by the petition are well-settled. SOSR2.2
Neither
Obama nor the SOS has shown why the State of New Jersey should
allow a person to be placed on the New Jersey election ballot for
the election to the Office of President who has presented absolutely
no evidence as to who he is, where he was born, and that he is
constitutionally eligible for the office he seeks. Neither Obama nor
the SOS point to any evidence in the record which supports the
ALJs finding that Obama was born in Hawaii or address the fact
that Obama was not born to a U.S. citizen father and mother.
The SOS argues that given, N.J.S.A. 19:13-18 and N.J.S.A.
19:13-20, she has no authority to remove Obamas name from the
ballot for the general election. SOSRb7. But clearly from the plain
language of N.J.S.A. 19:13-18, a vacancy is created if the petition
or nomination is insufficient or inoperative. N.J.S.A. 19:13-20
also provides that a vacancy, howsoever caused, may be filled
according to the procedure provided. A presidential candidate, not
demonstrating who he is, what his identity is, where he was born,
and that he is constitutionally eligible for the office he seeks and, in
any event, not being constitutionally eligible for that office because
2SOSRb2 means Secretary of State respondents brief at page 2.
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he is not an Article II natural born Citizen, renders the petition
and nomination insufficient and inoperative. That candidate
Obama is currently the putative sitting president and that
Obamas party has again nominated him for the same office do not
change or lessen his constitutional duty to demonstrate his
eligibility for that office. After all, to repeat a wrong twice does not
convert the wrong into a right. We have also shown in our petition
why it is unduly prejudicial to the integrity of our election for the
Office of President to wait for the Electoral College or even
Congress to address the issue of Obamas eligibility. Hence, the
SOS can declare a vacancy and ask that the procedure for filling
vacancies be followed by those interested in filling the vacancy.
Obama does not show whether countless other courts across
the country (BORb3) have actually addressed petitioners
arguments made here. Additionally, the New Jersey Supreme
Court is not bound by these other decisions. The clear distinction
between a citizen and a natural born Citizen is natural and
therefore universal, for a civil society must start with original
members (called citizens in a republic) who are the creators of
that society. Their children, grandchildren, etc. (Posterity)
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(Preamble to the Constitution) then are the natural-born citizens.
This is what Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 in effect says. The
creators of the new republic were Citizens of the United States
and their Posterity were natural born Citizens. The Founders
and Framers also allowed for new citizens through naturalization.
Hence, any naturalized citizen under any Act of Congress becomes
a citizen of the United States, just like the original Citizens of
the United States. A reading of the plain text of the Fourteenth
Amendment shows that it also only adds to the citizens of the
United States, simply by persons being born (without requiring
citizen parents) or naturalized in its jurisdiction. And the
children (Posterity) born in the United States to those new first
generation citizens of the United States then become natural
born Citizens, just like the children of the descendents of the
original Citizens of the United States.
Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162, 167-68 (1875), confirmed
the dichotomy of citizens and natural-born citizens. In the
doubt-free American common-law definition of a natural-born
citizen presented by Minor, the parents are citizens and the
children are natural born citizens. So, there was no question for
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the Minor Court whether children born in the United States to alien
parents were or were not natural-born citizens. Those children
simply did not meet the Founders and Framers definition of a
natural-born citizen. Minor explained that under that common-
law, they were aliens or foreigners. Hence, these children could
surely not be natural-born citizens. The only question was
whether those children now fell under the new Fourteenth
Amendment which included as citizens of the United States
children born within the jurisdiction of the United States. Minor
did not need to answer that question, for Virginia Minor was a
"natural-born citizen."
United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898), did
answer the question left open by Minor and said that those children,
born in the United States to domiciled and resident alien parents,
are citizens of the United States under the Fourteenth
Amendment. Wong Kim Ark recognized that Wong was a
Fourteenth Amendment citizen of the United States, but not an
Article II natural born Citizen. Justice Gray told us twice of this
distinction when he said: The child of an alien, if born in the
country, is as much a citizen as the natural-born child of a citizen,
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and by operation of the same principle. Wong Kim Ark, at 665-
66, 694 (citing and quoting Horace Binney). It is critical that when
he mentioned it for the second time, his sentence followed the
Courts conclusion which he based on how the colonial English
common law held aliens in amity to have sufficient allegiance to
the King to make his children born in the Kings dominion natural
born subjects, that Wong was born subject to the jurisdiction of
the United States. So twice, Justice Gray told us of the distinction
between a child born in the country to aliens and a child born in the
country to citizen parents and explained that both are citizens,
but only the latter is a natural-born citizen. So, today, a natural
born Citizen is still under the supreme law of the land a child born
in the United States to parents who were citizens at the time of
the childs birth. Any other U.S. citizen is a citizen of the
United States under the Fourteenth Amendment, Act of Congress,
or treaty.
Barack Obama was presumably born to a U.S. citizen
mother and a non-U.S. citizen father (his father was a British
subject/citizen). Obama maintains that it is sufficient for him to be
born to just one U.S. citizen parent in order to be a natural born
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Citizen. Having just one U.S. citizen parent is not enough to
make one a natural born Citizen.
There is no question that historically, a husbands and wifes
allegiance and citizenship followed that of the husband and united
into that of the husband. There was no such thing as a husband
having an allegiance or citizenship that was different from his
wifes. The Founders and Framers believed that a husband and
wife should be united as one when it came to allegiance and
citizenship. Speaking about a fathers citizenship meant that both
the father and mother had the same citizenship and that they would
both pass that citizenship on to their children. With citizenship
being united into one, there could not be any child born with
conflicting or split allegiances and loyalties inherited from one or
both alien parents under the rules of jus sanguinis (allegiance and
citizenship inherited from parents). See Mackenzie v. Hare, 239
U.S. 299, 311 (1915) ([t]he identity of husband and wife is an
ancient principle of our jurisprudence). Mackenzie explained that
the rule of unity of husband and wife addresses conditions of
national moment and international aspects. Id. at 312.
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On September 22, 1922, Congress enacted the Cable Act (42
Stat. 1021) which meant that a woman was no longer was tied to
her husbands citizenship. So, it was not until 1922 with the Cable
Act that wives could have a citizenship that was different from that
of her husband. But the acts framers also warned that it could
create dual national children. More importantly, the Cable Act did
not amend the definition of a natural born Citizen. The fact still
remained that the Founders and Framers originally constitutionally
required that both the father and mother of the child be citizens at
the time of the childs birth in the United States in order for that
child to be a natural born Citizen. So, the Constitution, never
being amended, still required two citizen parents. Hence, that an
alien wife has to go through a more rigorous exercise to become a
citizen of the United States did not amend the Constitutions
natural born Citizen clause by supposedly now only requiring one
citizen parent. Today, both father and mother must still be
citizens at the time of the childs birth. What changed is that the
wife does not simply follow the citizenship of her husband or vice
versa. Each spouse must acquire their own independent U.S.
citizenships and transmit their respective U.S. citizenship to their
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child by inheritance. See Ankeny v. Governor of the State of
Indiana, 916 N.E.2d 678 (Ind. Ct. App. 2009), transfer denied 929
N.E.2d 789 (Ind. 2010) (in footnote 12 also said that Minor
followed the rule of unity of husband and wife when it said: Note
that the Court in Minor contemplates only scenarios where both
parents are either citizens or aliens, rather in the case of President
Obama, whose mother was a U.S. citizen and father was a citizen of
the United Kingdom).
Finally, the purpose of the natural born Citizen clause was
to have a child who would some day be President and Military
Commander born in allegiance and jurisdiction only to the United
States. Being born even to just one alien parent, causing the child
to inherit that foreign parents allegiance and citizenship through
jus sanguinis, would defeat the very national security purpose of the
clause. We respectfully request that the Supreme Court grant
certification.
Respectfully submitted,
s/Mario Apuzzo
Mario Apuzzo
cc: A. Genova, Esq.; A. C. Stephens, Esq; N. Purpura; T. Moran