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The Arizona state Senate was scheduled to debate the humiliating “Birther” bill yesterday, but that didn’t happen — the Senate has postponed a preliminary vote on the bill.
The bill already has failed in the Arizona Legislature twice — once last year and once in the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this year. However, thanks to a strike-everything amendment, it’s found its way back onto the plates of state legislators, who undoubtedly have much better things to do than deal with politically symbolic, conspiracy-theory crap like this.
As we mentioned yesterday, the bill is slightly different from the original — but equally embarrassing for Arizona.
It would require political parties to provide a presidential candidate’s birth certificate to election officials before that person’s name is allowed on the Arizona ballot. It also would require the party to provide a statement saying where the candidate has lived for the past 14 years.
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As you probably know, U.S. citizenship already is a federal requirement to be president — so if it were to become law it would be purely symbolic and useless.
Aside from the bill’s uselessness, it is in direct response to the repeatedly debunked controversy over President Barack Obama’s citizenship and the right-wing conspiracy theorist “birther” movement. Birthers are lunatics, which adds further to the humiliation Arizona faces by having a bill like this even discussed by lawmakers.
The bill has not yet been scheduled for another vote.
