Nativism and the American Right

Sandy Levinson

University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato has just published an interesting new book, A More Perfect Constitution, calling for constitutional reform (including a new convention). Not surprisingly, I am a fan, even if I don't agree with him on all of his 23 specific proposals. I have a review in the Austin American-Statesman for those who are interested in finding out more about it. Phyllis Schafly has also reviewed it; perhaps not surprisingly, she's far less a fan. What I find especially interesting in her review is the following: "Sabato would abolish the constitutional provision that the President and Vice President shall be "a natural born citizen." That will bring cheers from the open-borders crowd eager to build a majority of diverse people unfamiliar with our American rule of law."

At a DC event that Sabato organized to discuss constitutional reform, Catherine Krier, the moderator for the panel that I was one, asked the participants about this clause of the Constitution. I quickly endorsed eliminating it. We should not be proud of the fact that the only explanation for Arnold Schwarzenegger's absence from the presidential race is the fact that he, by being born abroad, he is an irredeemably second-class citizen so far as the Constitution is concerned. I obviously wouldn't support him, but that's entirely different from prohibiting his candidacy on nativist grounds. I was more than a bit surprised that the strongest argument made in favor of preserving the Clause was offered by Michael Steele, the conservative Republican former Lt.-Gov. of Maryland defeated in his run for the Senate last year. (He's also African-American.)

I share Ms. Shafly's view that it would be good to have people in the White House (and the Vice Presidency) who were familiar with the "rule of law," but why would anyone seriously think that limiting the pool for presidents and vice presidents would produce such people? That certainly isn't the case with the present President and Vice President, nor, frankly, did I ever get the impression that Bill Clinton was willing to walk an extra mile for "the rule of law" (whatever exactly the term means, about which Brian Tamanaha has written an excellent book). And does anyone seriously believe that Rudy Guiliani has any commitment to the rule of law? It is nothing more that bigoted nativism to believe that being a native-born citizen is the relevant marker. (Obviously, I don't believe that all naturalized citizens are paragons of the rule of law. Just take a look at many leaders of the Cuban-American community in Miami. The point is that there is simply no reason to believe that birth-status correlates with the good we're trying to identify, i.e., "commitment to the rule of law.")

As I noted in my previous posting, I'd love for one of the debate "moderators" to ask the Democratic candidates their views on this issue. I would hope that none would be tempted to go down the nativist path exemplified by Schafly and Steele. (I note, incidentally, that Sen. Hatch proposed an amendment to eliminate the offending clause sometime around 2004, but it never went anywhere, not least because no Democrat had the wit to join Hatch in pushing the idea.)
Posted 11:54 PM by Sandy Levinson [link]