Firebrand CongressTotty Nancy Mace has an idea:
South Carolina GOP Representative Nancy Mace introduced a joint resolution on Wednesday proposing a constitutional amendment that would explicitly bar naturalized citizens from serving in Congress, the federal judiciary, or holding any Senate-confirmed positions.
The proposed legislation seeks to extend the “natural-born citizen” constraint — which currently applies only to the presidency and vice presidency under Article II of the U.S. Constitution — to all members of the House of Representatives, the Senate, federal judges at all levels, and prominent appointed officers such as Cabinet members and ambassadors.
If passed and ratified, the amendment would establish a strict dual-track citizenship restriction, requiring federal lawmakers and officials to have held U.S. citizenship from birth.
Okay, I need to talk about this because I am a naturalized U.S. citizen (35 years, give or take a few months), and of course I would be affected by such legislation. (Not that I care, because age and inclination would exclude me from any of the above lofty offices anyway.)
Now I can understand why Our Nancy would be suggesting such a thing, because let’s be honest, I bet there are more than a few naturalized U.S. citizens who are bent on overthrowing the republic rather than thanking their lucky stars (as I do, every day) for being allowed to share in the American Dream.
So I can see why she would be interested in such an action. The words “Quisling” and “fifth column” (a.k.a. Trojan horse) come to mind here, and probably with some justification.
However, allow me to point out that arch-Nazi collaborator Vidkun Quisling was not a naturalized Norwegian citizen, but native-born. And let’s be perfectly blunt about this: for every naturalized citizen who may be harboring evil subversive ideas about his adopted country, I can probably point to several native-born citizens who are just as evil (Ocasio-Cortez comes to mind).
However, Mace’s proposed legislation would also rid us of pustules like Ilhan Omar and Pramila Jayapal, to mention just two, who infest Congress like some malignant cancer.
So: is Nancy Mace’s proposed legislation a Good Thing? Here’s what else she said, in support of it:
Mace argued that the amendment simply extends the rigorous constitutional standard already required of the president to other critical positions of national trust.
…and mentions Super-Pustule Ilhan Omar specifically as evidence.
This would mean, by the way, that there’d be in essence two kinds of citizenship: native-born, to whom all things are possible; and naturalized, who could do anything except run the country.
This would mean that people like me — super-patriots, despite having been born in the wrong country — would be excluded from the levers of power.
In today’s political climate, though, I’m not sure that that’s a bad thing.
Feel free to argue the point in Comments.
By the way, some might ask why I refer to Nancy Mace as a “CongressTotty”.
Q.E.D.