Opinion: Oklahoma House passes ‘birther bill’ for presidential candidates
This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.
A week after Gov. Jan Brewer vetoed a bill that would have required the political parties to provide proof of citizenship for their presidential candidates to get on the Arizona ballot, the Oklahoma House of Representatives Senate Bill 91 easily passed through the Republican-controlled House by a landslide 77-13 vote Wednesday, the same day President Obama released his long-form Hawaii birth certificate.
Even Democrats voted 14-13 in favor of the bill that now gets kicked to the Republican-controlled Senate, which already approved an earlier version of the measure but must vote again because of changes the House made.
Rep. Sue Tibbs (R-Tulsa) who authored the House bill told the Associated Press that although others call it a ‘birther bill,’ her measure is not a response to the controversy surrounding Obama’s controversial birth certificate nor of the birther movement that rose up in its wake.
‘This is not a birther bill, has nothing to do with Obama,’ Tibbs said of the bill, which she says merely reinforces the Constitution that requires presidential candidates to have been born in the United States.
Brewer, a Republican, told CNN’s John King on Monday that she thought the birth certificate debate, fanned by people such as Donald Trump, wasn’t good for the nation. ‘It’s just something I believe is leading our country down a path of destruction and it just is not serving any good purpose,’ she said.
Last week, a CBS News/New York Times poll revealed that 45% of Republicans and 45% of ‘tea party’ supporters agree with the belief that President Obama was not born in Hawaii.
RELATED:
Obama birth certificate creates a stir on Twitter
Obama on his birth certificate: ‘We do not have time for this kind of silliness’
Donald Trump says Obama should stop playing basketball and lower gas prices
-- Tony Pierce
Twitter.com/busblog