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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/04/barack-obama-citizenship-supreme-court


Supreme Court to consider taking up lawsuit challenging Obama's
citizenship
Lawsuit just the tip of an iceberg of nationwide efforts seeking to
derail Obama's presidential election win

    * McClatchy newspapers
    * guardian.co.uk, Thursday December 4 2008 17.16 GMT
    * Article history

The US Supreme Court will consider whether to take up a lawsuit
challenging President-elect Barack Obama's US citizenship on Friday, a
continuation of a New Jersey case embraced by some opponents of
Obama's election.

The meeting of justices will coincide with a vigil by the filer's
supporters in Washington on the steps of the nation's highest court.
The lawsuit originally sought to stay the election, and was filed on
behalf of Leo Donofrio against Nina Mitchell Wells, New Jersey's
secretary of state.

Legal experts say the appeal has little chance of succeeding, despite
appearing on the court's schedule. Legal records show it is only the
tip of an iceberg of nationwide efforts seeking to derail Obama's
election over accusations that he either wasn't born a US citizen or
that he later renounced his citizenship in Indonesia.

The Obama campaign has maintained that he was born in Hawaii, has an
authentic birth certificate, and is a natural-born US citizen.
Hawaiian officials agree.

Among those filing lawsuits is Alan Keyes, who lost to Obama in the
2004 Illinois Senate race. Keyes' lawsuit seeks to halt certification
of votes in California. Another lawsuit by a Kentucky man aims to have
a federal judge review Obama's original birth certificate, which
Hawaiian officials say is locked in a state vault.

Other lawsuits have been filed by Andy Martin, whose case was
dismissed in Hawaii, and by an Ohio man whose case also was dismissed.

The most famous case questioning Obama's citizenship was filed in
Pennsylvania in August on behalf of Philip J Berg and sought to enjoin
the Democratic National Committee from nominating Obama. The Supreme
Court declined to accept the case. Earlier, a federal judge rejected
it for "lack of standing", ruling that Berg had no legal right to sue.

In cases like these, judges sometimes believe the matter is best left
to political institutions, such as the Electoral College or Congress,
said legal scholar Eugene Volokh of the University of California at
Los Angeles.

The remaining case with the highest profile is Donofrio v Wells. Since
it was distributed by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to other
justices for conference, the case gained undue importance for people
unschooled in how the court works, Volokh said.

Many petitioners seeking stays of pending events have their cases
distributed to the full court, he said. Of those, Volokh found that
782 were denied in the last eight years while just 60 were heard, not
all of those ultimately were successful.