SAN FRANCISCO (ABP) — The California Supreme Court declined Feb. 2 to hear a challenge to Barack Obama's election as president filed by plaintiffs including a former officer of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Justices declined to review an October ruling by California's Third District Court of Appeals dismissing a lawsuit by former diplomat Alan Keyes and Wiley Drake, a Southern Baptist pastor who served as second vice president of the SBC in 2006-07, alleging that Obama does not qualify to be president because he is not a natural-born citizen.
Drake, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Buena Park, Calif., ran for vice president of the United States as Keyes' running mate on the American Independent ticket in California in the 2008 election. After the election Drake and Keyes filed a lawsuit, along with party official Markham Robinson, claiming election officials should not have allowed Obama's name on the ballot without verifying that he met eligibility requirements to hold office.
The lawsuit is one of a number of so-called "birther" lawsuits against Obama's election filed by individuals or groups who disbelieve the president's claim that he was born in Hawaii to an American mother, thus establishing his citizenship.
The appeals court ruled that it is the role of political parties and Congress — not elected officials — to determine the eligibility of a presidential candidate. In his appeal, attorney Gary Kreep of the United States Justice Foundation argued that while the U.S. Constitution lays out eligibility requirements for the president there are no federal laws dealing with who is to make determination of eligibility. California law, Kreep argued, requires the secretary of state to verify candidates for every elected office except president.
The state Supreme Court rejected the appeal without comment. Kreep said he plans to appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Drake, Keyes and Robinson are also plaintiffs in a similar complaint in federal courts now pending before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
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Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.