Equal Opportunity to Govern Amendment

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The Equal Opportunity to Govern Amendment, also known as the Hatch Amendment, is a United States constitutional amendment proposed in July 2003 by Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) to repeal the natural-born citizen clause prohibiting foreign-born individuals from holding the office of President or Vice President of the United States. Hatch's amendment would allow anyone who has been a US citizen for twenty years to seek these offices. In the wake of the California recall election, 2003, this proposal is widely seen as an attempt to make California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (naturalized in 1983) eligible for the presidency and is sometimes nicknamed "Arnold bill". However, there are other politicians who were not born as American citizens and therefore would benefit from such an amendment. Notables include Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm, Florida Senator Mel Martinez and before his death, California Congressman Tom Lantos. The text of the amendment reads as follows:

Section 1. A person who is a citizen of the United States, who has been for 20 years a citizen of the United States, and who is otherwise eligible to the Office of President, is not ineligible to that Office by reason of not being a native born citizen of the United States.

Section 2. This article shall not take effect unless it has been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States not later than 7 years from the date of its submission to the States by the Congress.

[edit] External links

• Jerry Spangler: Hatch is pushing Arnold bill, Deseret Morning News 7 October 2004
• Statement of Senator Orrin G. Hatch before the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary Hearing on “Maximizing Voter Choice: Opening the Presidency to Naturalized Americans”
• John Dean: The Pernicious "Natural Born" Clause of the Constitution: Why Immigrants Like Governors Schwarzenegger and Granholm Ought to be Able to Become Presidents, 8 October 2004