McCain passes constitutional test: Lawyers

A pair of lawyers – one Republican, one Democrat – have concluded that John McCain’s 1936 birth outside the continental United States does not disqualify him to be president.

The likely Republican nominee was born on a US naval base in 1936 in the Panama Canal Zone.

A federal judge in California has been asked to determine whether Mr McCain meets the legal test to hold the nation’s highest office.

Although Mr McCain has called questions about his eligibility nonsense, his campaign, as it did in his first White House run in 2000, sought a review from legal experts to put the issue to rest.

“Based on the original meaning of the Constitution, the Framers’ intentions, and subsequent legal and historical precedent, Senator McCain’s birth to parents who were US citizens, serving on a US military base in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936, makes him a ’natural born citizen’ within the meaning of the Constitution,” the review found.

The Constitution requires that only “natural born” citizens hold the presidency. But the Founding Fathers did not elaborate on the term, and the meaning of the phrase has long been debated.

The Panama Canal Zone was a US territory when McCain was born on August 29, 1936. His father was stationed there in the Navy, and his mother was an American citizen.