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Congress: Rabbit holes

Political Wire notes: “Michigan U.S. Senate candidate Pete Hoekstra (R) said he'd like to ‘create a federal office in Washington that would verify that presidential candidates meet the minimum requirements to hold the office,’ the Detroit Free Press reports. Said Hoekstra: ‘This is not brain surgery. It should be an FBI person, maybe a CIA person. If you want to run for president, you've got to go with the proper documentation and get it certified that you meet the qualifications to be the President of the United States.’”

In 1967 questions were raised about George Romney’s eligibility since he was born in Mexico. Romney said in a statement at the time: "I am a natural born citizen. My parents were American citizens. I was a citizen at birth.”

Reuters: “At one point, the Congressional Research Service - an arm of the Library of Congress that is supposed to provide authoritative but impartial research for elected members - advised that its analysts agreed with George Romney, according to a congressional source. In a paper in November aimed at clarifying presidential eligibility, the Congressional Research Service declared that the practical, legal meaning of ‘natural born citizen’ would ‘most likely include’ not only anyone born on U.S. soil but anyone born overseas of at least one parent who was a U.S. citizen.”