SALON

Friday, Sep 14, 2012 7:00 PM UTC

Kansas gets birther-curious

Kansas officials are considering a challenge to Obama's ballot eligibility [UPDATED]

By

Topics: Barack Obama, 2012 Elections, Kansas, Birthers, Kris Kobach, ,

Kansas gets birther-curiousPresident Barack Obama walks from Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 13, 2012. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

The Kansas secretary of state and other Republican state officials are considering whether to take the president off of the November ballot because, they say, he might not be eligible to run.

Kris Kobach, a Tea Party Republican who is also an informal adviser to Mitt Romney, is a member of the State Objections Board. He and Republican Attorney General Derek Schmidt and Republican Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer are reviewing a complaint from Joe Montgomery, a concerned citizen, who says that the president has not adequately proven that he’s a natural-born American citizen. They have put off making a final decision until Monday, and have asked Hawaii, Arizona and Mississippi for more documentation.

“I don’t think it’s a frivolous objection,” Kobach said, as reported in the Topeka Capital-Journal. “I do think the factual record could be supplemented.”

Montgomery, who filed the complaint, is not buying the long-form birth certificate President Obama released last year, saying in his complaint that Obama holds both British and Kenyan citizenship. ”There is substantial evidence showing that much of Mr. Obama’s alleged birth certificates have been forged or doctored, and have not been confirmed as legally valid, true and accurate.”

One extremely conservative Kansas congressman told TPM that the objection won’t amount to much. “He’ll be on the ballot in Kansas,” said Rep. Tim Huelskamp.

Update: Joe Montgomery withdrew his objection Friday, telling the Huffington Post it was due to the public reaction: “I didn’t file this objection with the desire to involve anyone else. This is me expressing myself on a personal political level.”

Continue Reading Close

Jillian Rayfield is an Assistant News Editor for Salon, focusing on politics. Follow her on Twitter at @jillrayfield or email her at jrayfield@salon.com. More Jillian Rayfield.

Next Article

Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

What To Read Awards: Top 10 Books of 2012 slide show

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 10
  • 10. "The Guardians" by Sarah Manguso: "Though Sarah Manguso’s 'The Guardians' is specifically about losing a dear friend to suicide, she pries open her intelligent heart to describe our strange, sad modern lives. I think about the small resonating moments of Manguso’s narrative every day." -- M. Rebekah Otto, The Rumpus

  • 9. "Beautiful Ruins" by Jess Walter: "'Beautiful Ruins' leads my list because it's set on the coast of Italy in 1962 and Richard Burton makes an entirely convincing cameo appearance. What more could you want?" -- Maureen Corrigan, NPR's "Fresh Air"

  • 8. "Arcadia" by Lauren Groff: "'Arcadia' captures our painful nostalgia for an idyllic past we never really had." -- Ron Charles, Washington Post

  • 7. "Gone Girl" by Gillian Flynn: "When a young wife disappears on the morning of her fifth wedding anniversary, her husband becomes the automatic suspect in this compulsively readable thriller, which is as rich with sardonic humor and social satire as it is unexpected plot twists." -- Marjorie Kehe, Christian Science Monitor

  • 6. "How Should a Person Be" by Sheila Heti: "There was a reason this book was so talked about, and it’s because Heti has tapped into something great." -- Jason Diamond, Vol. 1 Brooklyn

  • 4. TIE "NW" by Zadie Smith and "Far From the Tree" by Andrew Solomon: "Zadie Smith’s 'NW' is going to enter the canon for the sheer audacity of the book’s project." -- Roxane Gay, New York Times "'Far From the Tree' by Andrew Solomon is, to my mind, a life-changing book, one that's capable of overturning long-standing ideas of identity, family and love." -- Laura Miller, Salon

  • 3. "Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk" by Ben Fountain: "'Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk' says a lot about where we are today," says Marjorie Kehe of the Christian Science Monitor. "Pretty much the whole point of that novel," adds Time's Lev Grossman.

  • 2. "Bring Up the Bodies" by Hilary Mantel: "Even more accomplished than the preceding novel in this sequence, 'Wolf Hall,' Mantel's new installment in the fictionalized life of Thomas Cromwell -- master secretary and chief fixer to Henry VIII -- is a high-wire act, a feat of novelistic derring-do." -- Laura Miller, Salon

  • 1. "Behind the Beautiful Forevers" by Katherine Boo: "Like the most remarkable literary nonfiction, it reads with the bite of a novel and opens up a corner of the world that most of us know absolutely nothing about. It stuck with me all year." -- Eric Banks, president of the National Book Critics Circle

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 10

Related Videos

More Related Stories

Comments

 67 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username ( profile | log out )

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

From Around the Web

Recommendations