Kamala Harris can’t be president / Republican group cites notorious Dred Scott ruling as

the national Federation of Republican assemblies nfra has cited the infamous 1857 Dr Scott Supreme Court decision which stated that enslaved people weren't citizens to argue that vice president Cela Harris is ineligible to run for president according to the Constitution the group also challenged the right of vbec ramaswami and Nikki Haley to appear on Republican primary ballots the Republican groups platform and policy document noted that the constitutional qualifications of presidential eligibility states that no person except a natural-born citizen shall be eligible or a citizen of the United States at the time of adoption of this constitution shall be eligible to the office of President the same document included former president Donald Trump's running mate Ohio Senator JD Vance on a list of preferred candidates for vice president the group which adopted the document during their last National Convention held between October the 13th and 15th last year goes on to argue in the document that a natural born citizen has to be born in the US to parents who are citizens when the child is born pointing to the thinking of Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas an originalist and strict constructionist understanding of the constitution in the Scalia and Thomas tradition as well as precedent setting US Supreme Court cases have found that a natural-born citizen is defined as a person born on American soil of parents who are both citizens of the United States at the time of the child's birth the document States the group then cite six cases including Dr Scott V Sanford the 1857 ruling came a few years before the 1861 outbreak of the US Civil War over the issue of slavery stating that enslaved people could not be citizens meaning that they couldn't expect to receive any protection from the courts or the federal government the ruling also said that Congress did not have the power to ban slavery from a federal territory the nf's platform document argued that several States candidates and major political parties have ignored this fundamental presidential qualification including candidates Nikki Haley vvec ramaswami and camela Harris whose parents were not American citizens at the time of their birth