Birthright citizenship—a cornerstone of the 14th Amendment that grants citizenship to everyone born on American soil—is again being challenged in Congress. On January 3, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) introduced H.R.140, the “Birthright Citizenship Act of 2013.”
Entering 2012, the Tea Party Caucus had 59 members in the House of Representatives. Before the November election, two members retired, two lost in primaries, Todd Akin and Denny Rehberg left the House to run for Senate (and both lost), and Mike Pence left to become governor of Indiana.
Of the 52 remaining Tea Party Caucus members in the general election, 48 won re-election with one more heading for a runoff election. That’s at least a 92% win rate (94% if Landry wins in December).
As further evidence of the growing influence of Christian nationalism inside the Tea Party Patriots, several speakers are scheduled to bring the culture war to center stage at a big Massachusetts Tea Party rally later this month.
Taking umbrage at the attention that the Doonesbury comic strip has drawn to a "Birther Bill" sitting in a House committee, Texas congressman Louie Gohmert (Republican) recently told Washington Post blogger Mary Ann Akers that the bill, H.R. 1503, has nothing to do with needling President Obama. If it ever was voted up and signed, Gohmert says, the bill would not take effect until the next presidential election in 2012. It would mandate that the campaign committees of the various contenders for president submit birth certificates and "other documentation as may be necessary to establish that the candidate meets the qualifications for eligibility..."
The Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights (IREHR) is a national organization with an international outlook examining racist, anti-Semitic, white nationalist, and far-right social movements, analyzing their intersection with civil society and social policy, educating the public, and assisting in the protection and extension of human rights through organization and informed mobilization.
