The National Federation of Republican Assemblies (NFRA) has invoked the 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford U.S. Supreme Court case in an argument that Vice President Kamala Harris is ineligible to run for president.
The group claims that the U.S. Constitution’s requirements to be eligible for the presidency disqualify Harris, along with Vivek Ramaswamy, because they do not meet the definition of a “natural-born citizen.”
The group interprets the meaning of natural-born citizen to be someone who is born on U.S. soil to parents who are both U.S. citizens at the time of birth. In the group’s interpretation, they cite six Supreme Court cases to beef up their argument, which includes the Dred Scott decision.
These claims have gained traction on X, formerly known as Twitter. They ring similar to the claims about former president Barack Obama’s heritage and nationalities during his presidency.
The Dred Scot decision has become one of the most infamous rulings in U.S. history. It is believed that this ruling is one of the key events that sparked the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861.
Despite the ruling, it was later overturned by both the 13th Amendment and 14th Amendment of the Constitution.
These amendments abolished slavery and established that any person born in the U.S. is a citizen, regardless of race or parentage. These amendments also nullify the arguments that the NFRA is attempting to make around 150 years later.
The group’s definition of a natural-born citizen is extremely narrow and has also proven inconsistent with long-established legal precedents.
The case Perkins v. Elg explicitly stated that “a child born here of alien parentage becomes a citizen of the United States,” once again nullifying the NFRA’s “definition” of a natural-born citizen.
If the group wants to keep up their misguided and incorrect definition of a natural-born citizen, so many of the nation’s earliest presidents and founding fathers would have been disqualified from the presidency; the list includes George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, as they were born to British parents before the U.S. was even conceptualized.
Another person who wouldn’t be president — if we’re going by the NFRA definition — is their main man Donald Trump, whose mother was a Scottish immigrant.
This piece of information is incredibly hard to find, as her name is only found in the personal life section of his Wikipedia page. A quick google search of her name, Mary Anne MacLeod Trump, shows that she was born in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland.
The NFRA needs to take a step back and look at who they’re endorsing before making baseless claims about citizenship.
On top of all these inaccurate claims and definitions, I can clearly see how racially charged the group is. By challenging the eligibility of a woman of color to run for president, one has to ask if the NFRA is engaging in racial dog-whistling to undermine minority candidates and their legitimacy.
This shows how crucial it is to vote, especially in a politically turbulent climate like the one we’re experiencing.
If eligible, make sure you’re registered to vote in this year’s election. The deadline is 21 days before election day, Oct. 15.
You can check your voter registration status on VoterView’s website.
Editor’s Note: You can read more about national and local politics in our upcoming Election Guide, which will be published on Oct. 17. Those stories will be available online prior to Oct. 17.
