The National Federation of Republican Assemblies (NFRA), a 90-year-old conservative organization, has ignited a firestorm of controversy by invoking the 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford US Supreme Court ruling to argue that US Vice President Kamala Harris is ineligible to run for president of the United States. The NFRA’s platform and policy document assert that the US Constitution’s requirements for presidential eligibility disqualify Harris, Nikki Haley, and Vivek Ramaswamy, arguing that these candidates do not meet the definition of a “natural-born citizen.”
The NFRA claims that the Constitution requires a president to be a “natural-born citizen,” which they interpret as being born on US soil to parents who were both US citizens at the time of the child’s birth. They base this interpretation on the Dred Scott decision, which held that enslaved people could not be considered US citizens. However, this decision, widely considered one of the Supreme Court’s worst rulings, was later overturned by the 13th and 14th Amendments, which abolished slavery and established that all persons born in the United States are citizens, regardless of race or parentage.
The NFRA’s argument, drawing on an originalist and strict constructionist view of the Constitution, has been widely criticized. Legal experts point out that the 1939 Supreme Court case Perkins v. Elg explicitly stated that “A child born here of alien parentage becomes a citizen of the United States,” directly contradicting the NFRA’s claims. Furthermore, the US Constitution’s requirements for presidential eligibility have been broadly interpreted to mean that anyone born on US soil is a natural-born citizen, regardless of their parents’ nationality. This interpretation has been upheld in numerous legal cases and is widely accepted by legal scholars.
The NFRA’s decision to cite the Dred Scott ruling has been met with widespread criticism, with many labeling it as racially insensitive and legally flawed. The organization’s invocation of this controversial ruling, which is associated with one of the darkest periods in American history, has been seen as an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of minority candidates. The NFRA’s argument would disqualify several early US presidents, including George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison, who were born to British subjects before the United States existed.
The NFRA’s actions are widely viewed as a political tactic rather than a legitimate legal argument. The organization has officially endorsed former US President Donald Trump at their October 2023 convention, suggesting a motive to discredit Harris and other potential rivals in the 2024 presidential election. The NFRA’s use of the Dred Scott ruling, which has been effectively nullified by subsequent constitutional amendments, is seen by many as a desperate attempt to undermine the eligibility of a woman of color to run for president. This maneuver, coupled with the organization’s endorsement of Trump, raises serious questions about their intentions and the motivations behind their controversial claims.
