Is Kamala Harris ineligible to run for US president? What's the latest controversy?

The National Federation of Republican Assemblies (NFRA), a 90-year-old conservative organisation, has ignited a firestorm of controversy by invoking the 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford US Supreme Court ruling in its argument that US Vice President Kamala Harris is not eligible to run for president of the United States.

The NFRA’s platform and policy document assert that the US Constitution’s requirements for presidential eligibility disqualify Harris, Nikki Haley, and Vivek Ramaswamy, arguing that these candidates do not meet the definition of a “natural-born citizen.”

What is NFRA’s argument?

According to the NFRA, “The Constitutional qualifications of Presidential eligibility” state that “No person except a natural born Citizen, shall be eligible, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President.”

The organisation interprets this to mean that to be a natural-born citizen, one must be born on US soil to parents who are both US citizens at the time of the child’s birth.

The NFRA’s interpretation draws on an originalist and strict constructionist view of the Constitution, aligning with the judicial philosophies of late US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and Justice Clarence Thomas.

Their platform document cites six Supreme Court cases to bolster their argument, including the Dred Scott decision, which held that enslaved people could not be considered US citizens and therefore had no standing to sue in federal court.

This decision, which is widely regarded as one of the worst in the history of the Supreme Court, was a key factor in pushing the nation toward the Civil War.

The NFRA argues that the “natural-born citizen” requirement has been ignored by several states, candidates, and political parties, including in the cases of Harris, Haley, and Ramaswamy.

The group’s document states, “It is the will of this convention that only candidates who meet the natural-born citizenship standard, interpreted through an originalist and strict constructionist standard, be placed on the 2024 Republican presidential primary ballots.”

What was the Dred Scott decision?

The Dred Scott v. Sandford decision, delivered by the US Supreme Court in 1857, is one of the most infamous rulings in American history. The case involved Dred Scott, an enslaved African American man who sued for his freedom on the grounds that he had lived in free territories where slavery was prohibited.

Scott argued that his residence in these territories, where slavery was outlawed, made him a free man. However, the US Supreme Court ruled against Scott, holding that African Americans, whether free or enslaved, were not US citizens and therefore had no right to sue in federal court.

The decision also stated that Congress had no authority to prohibit slavery in federal territories, effectively nullifying the Missouri Compromise, which had sought to balance the interests of slave and free states.

The ruling intensified sectional tensions and is often cited as one of the key events leading to the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861.

The Dred Scott decision was later overturned by the 13th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution, which abolished slavery and established that all persons born in the United States are citizens, regardless of race or parentage.

The NFRA’s decision to cite the Dred Scott ruling in the context of Kamala Harris’s eligibility has been met with widespread criticism. The US Archives describes the Scott v. Sandford ruling as “considered by many legal scholars to be the worst ever rendered by the Supreme Court.” The decision’s central tenets were effectively nullified by constitutional amendments passed in the aftermath of the Civil War.

Who was Dred Scott?

Dred Scott was born into slavery around 1799 in Southampton County, Virginia. His life and legal battle would eventually lead to one of the most notorious Supreme Court decisions in US history.

Scott was originally owned by Peter Blow, who moved him to Alabama in 1818 and then to St. Louis, Missouri, in 1830. After Blow’s death in 1832, Scott was sold to Dr. John Emerson, an army surgeon. Emerson took Scott to Illinois, a free state, and then to Fort Snelling in the Wisconsin Territory, where the Missouri Compromise had banned slavery.

Today I learned: the National Federation of Republican Assemblies is challenging Kamala Harris’ eligibility for President based on—get this—Dred Scott. They are claiming that the Supreme Court ruled anyone with one drop of African ancestry can’t be a citizen, so she’s ineligible. pic.twitter.com/agMKLJB6Eg

During his time in Wisconsin, Scott married Harriet Robinson, another enslaved person, in a rare civil ceremony. The couple lived in Wisconsin for several years before Emerson moved back to Missouri, a slave state, taking the Scotts with him. After Emerson’s death in 1843, Scott attempted to purchase his freedom from Emerson’s widow, Irene, but she refused.

In 1846, Scott took the bold step of suing for his freedom in the Missouri courts, arguing that his residence in free territories had made him a free man. The case, which initially seemed straightforward, eventually made its way to the US Supreme Court after a decade-long legal battle.

The Court’s 1857 decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford ruled against Scott, stating that African Americans could not be citizens and that Congress lacked the authority to prohibit slavery in the territories.

Scott was eventually granted his freedom in May 1857, shortly after the Supreme Court’s decision, when he was manumitted by the family of his original owner, Peter Blow. Tragically, Scott’s freedom was short-lived; he died of tuberculosis just over a year later, in September 1858.

How is NFRA’s argument flawed?

The NFRA’s use of the Dred Scott decision to challenge Kamala Harris’s eligibility has been widely condemned as legally flawed and racially insensitive. Legal experts argue that the NFRA’s interpretation of the “natural-born citizen” requirement is overly narrow and inconsistent with established legal precedents.

For example, the 1939 Supreme Court case Perkins v. Elg explicitly stated that “A child born here of alien parentage becomes a citizen of the United States,” directly contradicting the NFRA’s claims.

Moreover, the US Constitution’s requirements for presidential eligibility have been broadly interpreted to mean that anyone born on US soil is a natural-born citizen, regardless of their parents’ nationality. This interpretation has been upheld in numerous legal cases and is widely accepted by legal scholars.

Critics also point out that the NFRA’s interpretation would have disqualified several early US presidents, including George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison, from holding office.

These founding fathers were born to parents who were British subjects before the United States existed, meaning they would not meet the strict standards outlined by the NFRA.

Despite these criticisms, the NFRA has remained steadfast in its position. Alex Johnson, the group’s president, defended their stance in a statement to The Independent, saying, “The media’s suggestion that referencing a court case in a 30+ page document equates to endorsing every aspect of the case is inherently dishonest and misleading.”

He further argued that Kamala Harris should not hold office for a variety of reasons, including what he described as the Democratic Party’s divisive tactics on race and class.

“We firmly believe that faux Democrat Ms. Harris should never hold office for any of the many reasons people choose to highlight, including her party’s tactics on dividing people by race and class, which mirror those that have led nations like Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea into totalitarian regimes,” Johnson stated.

“These policies have historically resulted in widespread suffering, economic collapse, and the erosion of individual freedoms. The Democrat Party preys on the ignorance of voters.”

What is NFRA’s political motive behind this move?

The NFRA’s use of the Dred Scott ruling to challenge the eligibility of Kamala Harris and other candidates is not just a legal argument but also a political tactic.

The organisation officially endorsed former US President Donald Trump at their October 2023 convention, further fuelling speculation that their actions are motivated by a desire to discredit Harris and other potential rivals in the 2024 presidential election.

In the event that the NFRA attempts to scrub their Dred Scott-citing resolution from their website, here’s video evidence that it was there today: pic.twitter.com/wotjW8EMEK

The legal basis for the NFRA’s claims is tenuous at best. The US Supreme Court’s ruling in Dred Scott v. Sandford was effectively nullified by the 13th and 14th Amendments, which abolished slavery and established birthright citizenship. The interpretation of the “natural-born citizen” clause that the NFRA advocates is not supported by the majority of legal scholars or by historical precedent.

Moreover, the NFRA’s invocation of the Dred Scott ruling has been criticised as racially charged, given the historical context of the case and its association with one of the darkest periods in American history. By using this ruling to challenge the eligibility of a woman of colour to run for president, the NFRA has been accused of engaging in a form of racial dog-whistling that seeks to undermine the legitimacy of minority candidates.

With inputs from agencies