UPDATE: It looks as though the State of Hawai’s has learned how to play political chess with the birthers. TPM filed a public records request for emails and letters between AZ Secretary of State Ken Bennett and the state. The best ones are the those from the Deputy AG asking Bennett to provide a legal basis under AZ law for his request.
Here’s a sample:
From: Jill T. Nagamine
Sent: Tuesday, May 01, 2012 5:11 PM
To: Drake, Jim; Bennett, Ken
Subject: Re: Request from the Arizona Secretary of State’s OfficeDear Mr. Bennett and Mr. Drake—
My apologies for not responding immediately. I have recently been away from my office a great deal, including today. My client, the Department of Health, has forwarded your request for verification of President Obama’s birth record to me. We need more information to substantiate that you are eligible to receive verification. Hawaii Revised Statutes, section 338-18(g), provides:
(g) The department shall not issue a verification in lieu of a certified copy of any such record, or any part thereof, unless it is satisfied that the applicant requesting a verification is:
(1) A person who has a direct and tangible interest in the record but requests a verification in lieu of a certified copy;
(2) A governmental agency or organization who for a legitimate government purpose maintains and needs to update official lists of persons in the ordinary course of the agency’s or organization’s activities;
(3) A governmental, private, social, or educational agency or organization who seeks confirmation of a certified copy of any such record submitted in support of or information provided about a vital event relating to any such record and contained in an official application made in the ordinary course of the agency’s or organization’s activities by an individual seeking employment with, entrance to, or the services or products of the agency or organization;
(4) A private or government attorney who seeks to confirm information about a vital event relating to any such record which was acquired during the course of or for purposes of legal proceedings; or
(5) An individual employed, endorsed, or sponsored by a governmental, private, social, or educational agency or organization who seeks to confirm information about a vital event relating to any such record in preparation of reports or publications by the agency or organization for research or educational purposes.As the Secretary and I initially discussed, it appears that you might be eligible for verification of the record based on subparagraph (2), but we need to see what your authority is “to update official lists of persons in the ordinary course of your activities.” Will you send me a copy of your law that allows this, and will you send me information that shows:
(1) What list are you updating?
(2) Is it your normal procedure to update all entries on your list by requiring birth data verification?
(3) Are you requiring birth data verification of all entries on your list, rather than just targeting one name on your list? (please provide evidence that you are doing so) (emphasis added).You may address your response directly to me, and I will relay it to my client.
Thank you,
Jill T. Nagamine
Deputy Attorney General
State of Hawaii
Read the others for some great laughs.
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We all remember Crazy Eileen, one of the first birthers to go public. Well, Arizona, not satisfied with being the batshit crazy place it’s become, has just added a new ingredient to the mix – birtherism. Their Secretary of State has indicated he may not allow President Obama’s name to appear on the ballot because he’s not convinced he was born in the US.
The man in charge of running Arizona’s elections has gone to the birthers. Secretary of State Ken Bennett now says he’s not convinced Barack Obama was really born in the United States and so he is threatening to keep the president off the ballot in November.
Bennett’s comments came in an interview late Thursday with conservative radio talk show host Mike Broomhead on Phoenix station KFYI.
Bennett said he was following the lead of the state’s eccentric Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a fellow Republican who ordered an investigation into the president’s birth certificate last year and concluded the document released by the White House is a forgery. Bennett said he is now trying to get verification from state officials in Hawaii that the certificate is authentic.
Yeah, I’d base any decision I made on what Joe Arpaio says.
Sad thing about Bennett is that he’s the #2 person in Arizona state government, which means if anything happened to Gov. Terence Stamp Jan Brewer, he would become governor. Bennett claims not to be a birther but says he has a “responsibility as secretary of state is to make sure the ballots in Arizona are correct and that those people whose names are on the ballot have met the qualifications for the office they are seeking.” Sounds like a birther to me.
And he’s running for governor in 2014. Think he’s going to use this as a fundraising tool? Oh, I shouldn’t be so cynical.
Here’s the good part:
Broomhead, the radio host, pressed Bennett on what he would do if he didn’t get the right response back from Hawaii.
“If they won’t comply, if they refuse to comply with this, will you remove the president from the ballot?” Broomhead asked. “Will you exclude him from the ballot?”
“That’s possible,” Bennett said. “Or the other option would be I would ask all of candidates, including the president, maybe to submit a certified copy of their birth certificate. But I don’t want to do that.”
Now I wonder if Rmoney will be questioned about his eligibility to be on the ballot seeing that his father was born in Mexico and came into the US illegally.