Kamala Harris Isn’t Legally Eligible to be President, Ramona GOP Audience is Told
Kamala Harris isn't eligible to be president — or even vice president — a rapt Ramona audience was told Saturday.
In remarks at Ramona MainStage, Allen Meyers said the framers' original meaning of "natural born citizen" in the U.S. Constitution barred citizens with a father born outside the United States from occupying the White House.
Meyers, who said he lives in the Del Mar area, was invited by the American Liberty Forum of Ramona to speak ahead of a handful of Republican candidates.
But with Rep. Darrell Issa in Washington and state Sen. Brian Jones out of town, the only high-profile attendees were county Supervisor Joel Anderson and Assembly candidate Andrew Hayes.
Dan Summers, forum leader and emcee, said 75th Assembly District candidate Carl DeMaio was not invited because of his decision to challenge fellow Republican Hayes, the Lakeside school board member already endorsed by the local party.
Speaking for at least the third time in Ramona, Meyers detailed a theory he told Times of San Diego was espoused by John Eastman , the indicted former Chapman University law professor.
"'Natural born citizen' was put in there specifically because [the framers] wanted the person at the top and securing the laws to have full allegiance to America," Meyers told an audience of 40.
He said the idea was based on a book by Swiss diplomat Emmerich de Vattel — "The Law of Nations" of 1758 — that the founding fathers supposedly found influential.
The Constitution specifies only "citizen" for House and Senate members, while "natural born citizen" commands a more restrictive requirement for president and vice president, Meyers said.
"Natural born citizen is not about location," he said. "It is about heritage — it is about allegiance."
And since Vattel assumed children naturally followed their fathers politically and socially, Meyers asserts that Vice President Harris, whose parents weren't citizens when she was born in Oakland in 1964, can't be counted on to swear an oath to defend America.
"I think we probably need an amendment to the Constitution to finally get this filled out," he said. "You're not going to get that from somebody with parents from Jamaica ... [and] India."
Meyers recalled a conversation he had on the subject where his tone was "nice" and another man was dismissive and angry.
"So this is one of the biggest problems that we encounter — which is to get people to have a conversation, a chat, a discussion, not an argument, not a debate."
Meyers said the key to understanding the issue is how the framers understood "natural born citizen" the day they "put the Constitution into action" in March 1789.
"The Supreme Court cannot rule on a law that changes the contract, the Constitution — it's just wrong," he added.
Emcee Summers, a Ramona school board member, said Meyers had earlier spoken to his Liberty Forum group on the federal reserve and the Constitution — and was a friend of one of his steering committee members.
Also speaking were incumbent Ramona school board members Dawn Perfect and Daryn Drum, running for re-election, and two Ramona Municipal Water District board members — Jeff Lawler and Jim Piva.
Holly Hamilton-Bleakley, a challenger of incumbent board member Michelle Rains , is running for the Palomar Community College District Governing Board Trustee Area 4 covering Ramona and Poway.
The event took place 1.6 miles down the road from a Trump Store across the street from a Kahoots pet store. It's been open since March, a clerk said.
Few candidates Saturday would address the Meyers theory of Harris being ineligible to take the presidential oath.
Some school board candidates said they hadn't been present for Meyers' remarks — which came after several videos by a group called Stop Media Bias Now.
"I appreciate his opinion, but I don't think it's a scholarly opinion," said one candidate who asked not to be named. "I don't agree with his opinion."
That person wasn't alone.
In August 2020, more than 40 law professors signed a letter rebutting an opinion piece by Eastman that contended Harris wasn't eligible to be vice president.
"While Newsweek subsequently apologized for publishing the piece, it was picked up by President Trump in his usual ridiculously ignorant manner," said an introduction.
"The idea is completely without foundation and runs completely counter to the meaning of both Article II and Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment."
Assembly candidate Hayes — who took potshots at rival DeMaio ("screaming on Fox News isn't going to get anything done ... I'm going to be a happy warrior for you") — declined to comment on the Harris eligibility issue.
(Hayes hadn't heard his remarks, since he arrived late — in shorts — after a morning canvass with San Diego Young Republicans.)
But District 2 Supervisor Anderson caught the tail end of Meyers' talk.
I asked him what he thought of Meyers' theory.
"I have no idea," Anderson said as he began to leave. "I never heard of him."
