FEC Suspends Decision on Foreign-Born Presidential Candidate

Today, the Federal Election Commission took up the last remaining question that foreign-born Presidential hopeful Abdul Hassan asked them. Can he receive taxpayer money to run his presidential campaign?

Mr. Hassan is a Guatamala-born naturalized U.S. citizen. The Constitution says that only natural-born citizens (or those in the U.S. at the time of the signing of the Constitution) can be elected President.

The members of the committee remarked that the larger than normal number of comments seemed to have come from regular people – not the usual collection of lawyers. It would appear that Americans had a lot to say on the issue and the commission listened. One commissioner noted that the comments included the basic question, “Are you serious, can he really get taxpayer money to run for an office he can’t legally hold?”

Several other points were made during the session. First, if they let him collect matching funds, to run a campaign for an office he cannot hold, are they not aiding and abetting a fraudster? This test probably should have been applied to the other three questions that would allow Hassan to take money for his campaign from those who would be sucked into his fraudulent endeavor.

After about 30 minutes of discussion the panel decided to work on a new opinion, with changed language, but no clear direction. The panel will have to reconvene to decide this question.