LAW OFFICES OF MARIO APUZZO Attorney at Law 185 Gatzmer Avenue Jamesburg, New Jersey 08831 (732) 521-1900

FAX (732) 521-3906 Email apuzzo@erols.com

August 8, 2012 Mark Neary, Clerk Supreme Court of New Jersey Hughes Justice Complex 25 W. Market Street P.O. Box 970 Trenton, New Jersey 08625-0970 Re: Nicholas E. Purpura et al. v. Barack Obama Docket No.: 070152

Dear Honorable Justices of the New Jersey Supreme Court: Respondents do not offer any substantive argument contradicting petitioners petition. We have shown that our petition presents questions of general importance which have not been but which should be settled by the Supreme Court and that the interest of justice requires that the Supreme Court grant certification. A democratic majority does not have the constitutional right to elect a President who is not constitutionally eligible. Hence, whether a person running for President is an Article II natural born Citizen and constitutionally eligible for that office is a question of great

public importance. What role the State of New Jersey through the Secretary of State (SOS) has in vetting candidates who are running for the Office of President is also a question of great public importance. Whether New Jersey is responsible for determining the eligibility of its presidential candidates is a significant question for the state to answer. For sure, how best to protect the integrity of New Jersey elections for the Office of President is a question of great public importance to the State of New Jersey, which is guaranteed by Article IV, Section 4 of our Constitution a republican form of government. Barack Obama (Obama) and the SOS have not shown why such questions are not of public importance or why the Supreme Court should not settle them. These questions and their answers are special reasons enough for this Court to grant certification. Obama calls petitioners arguments recycled arguments and failed theories without showing how their arguments are wrong. BORb3.1 Obama fails to show how petitioners arguments are simply application of established principles to the facts of a certain case. Id. The SOS does not show how the election law

BORb3 means Barack Obama respondents brief at page 3.

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issues raised by the petition are well-settled. SOSR2.2 Neither Obama nor the SOS has shown why the State of New Jersey should allow a person to be placed on the New Jersey election ballot for the election to the Office of President who has presented absolutely no evidence as to who he is, where he was born, and that he is constitutionally eligible for the office he seeks. Neither Obama nor the SOS point to any evidence in the record which supports the ALJs finding that Obama was born in Hawaii or address the fact that Obama was not born to a U.S. citizen father and mother. The SOS argues that given, N.J.S.A. 19:13-18 and N.J.S.A. 19:13-20, she has no authority to remove Obamas name from the ballot for the general election. SOSRb7. But clearly from the plain language of N.J.S.A. 19:13-18, a vacancy is created if the petition or nomination is insufficient or inoperative. N.J.S.A. 19:13-20 also provides that a vacancy, howsoever caused, may be filled according to the procedure provided. A presidential candidate, not demonstrating who he is, what his identity is, where he was born, and that he is constitutionally eligible for the office he seeks and, in any event, not being constitutionally eligible for that office because

SOSRb2 means Secretary of State respondents brief at page 2.

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he is not an Article II natural born Citizen, renders the petition and nomination insufficient and inoperative. That candidate Obama is currently the putative sitting president and that Obamas party has again nominated him for the same office do not change or lessen his constitutional duty to demonstrate his eligibility for that office. After all, to repeat a wrong twice does not convert the wrong into a right. We have also shown in our petition why it is unduly prejudicial to the integrity of our election for the Office of President to wait for the Electoral College or even Congress to address the issue of Obamas eligibility. Hence, the SOS can declare a vacancy and ask that the procedure for filling vacancies be followed by those interested in filling the vacancy. Obama does not show whether countless other courts across the country (BORb3) have actually addressed petitioners arguments made here. Additionally, the New Jersey Supreme Court is not bound by these other decisions. The clear distinction between a citizen and a natural born Citizen is natural and therefore universal, for a civil society must start with original members (called citizens in a republic) who are the creators of that society. Their children, grandchildren, etc. (Posterity)

(Preamble to the Constitution) then are the natural-born citizens. This is what Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 in effect says. The creators of the new republic were Citizens of the United States and their Posterity were natural born Citizens. The Founders and Framers also allowed for new citizens through naturalization. Hence, any naturalized citizen under any Act of Congress becomes a citizen of the United States, just like the original Citizens of the United States. A reading of the plain text of the Fourteenth Amendment shows that it also only adds to the citizens of the United States, simply by persons being born (without requiring citizen parents) or naturalized in its jurisdiction. And the children (Posterity) born in the United States to those new first generation citizens of the United States then become natural born Citizens, just like the children of the descendents of the original Citizens of the United States. Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162, 167-68 (1875), confirmed the dichotomy of citizens and natural-born citizens. In the doubt-free American common-law definition of a natural-born citizen presented by Minor, the parents are citizens and the children are natural born citizens. So, there was no question for

the Minor Court whether children born in the United States to alien parents were or were not natural-born citizens. Those children simply did not meet the Founders and Framers definition of a natural-born citizen. Minor explained that under that commonlaw, they were aliens or foreigners. Hence, these children could surely not be natural-born citizens. The only question was whether those children now fell under the new Fourteenth Amendment which included as citizens of the United States children born within the jurisdiction of the United States. Minor did not need to answer that question, for Virginia Minor was a "natural-born citizen." United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898), did answer the question left open by Minor and said that those children, born in the United States to domiciled and resident alien parents, are citizens of the United States under the Fourteenth Amendment. Wong Kim Ark recognized that Wong was a Fourteenth Amendment citizen of the United States, but not an Article II natural born Citizen. Justice Gray told us twice of this distinction when he said: The child of an alien, if born in the country, is as much a citizen as the natural-born child of a citizen,

and by operation of the same principle. Wong Kim Ark, at 66566, 694 (citing and quoting Horace Binney). It is critical that when he mentioned it for the second time, his sentence followed the Courts conclusion which he based on how the colonial English common law held aliens in amity to have sufficient allegiance to the King to make his children born in the Kings dominion natural born subjects, that Wong was born subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. So twice, Justice Gray told us of the distinction between a child born in the country to aliens and a child born in the country to citizen parents and explained that both are citizens, but only the latter is a natural-born citizen. So, today, a natural born Citizen is still under the supreme law of the land a child born in the United States to parents who were citizens at the time of the childs birth. Any other U.S. citizen is a citizen of the United States under the Fourteenth Amendment, Act of Congress, or treaty. Barack Obama was presumably born to a U.S. citizen mother and a non-U.S. citizen father (his father was a British subject/citizen). Obama maintains that it is sufficient for him to be born to just one U.S. citizen parent in order to be a natural born

Citizen. Having just one U.S. citizen parent is not enough to make one a natural born Citizen. There is no question that historically, a husbands and wifes allegiance and citizenship followed that of the husband and united into that of the husband. There was no such thing as a husband having an allegiance or citizenship that was different from his wifes. The Founders and Framers believed that a husband and wife should be united as one when it came to allegiance and citizenship. Speaking about a fathers citizenship meant that both the father and mother had the same citizenship and that they would both pass that citizenship on to their children. With citizenship being united into one, there could not be any child born with conflicting or split allegiances and loyalties inherited from one or both alien parents under the rules of jus sanguinis (allegiance and citizenship inherited from parents). See Mackenzie v. Hare, 239 U.S. 299, 311 (1915) ([t]he identity of husband and wife is an ancient principle of our jurisprudence). Mackenzie explained that the rule of unity of husband and wife addresses conditions of national moment and international aspects. Id. at 312.

On September 22, 1922, Congress enacted the Cable Act (42 Stat. 1021) which meant that a woman was no longer was tied to her husbands citizenship. So, it was not until 1922 with the Cable Act that wives could have a citizenship that was different from that of her husband. But the acts framers also warned that it could create dual national children. More importantly, the Cable Act did not amend the definition of a natural born Citizen. The fact still remained that the Founders and Framers originally constitutionally required that both the father and mother of the child be citizens at the time of the childs birth in the United States in order for that child to be a natural born Citizen. So, the Constitution, never being amended, still required two citizen parents. Hence, that an alien wife has to go through a more rigorous exercise to become a citizen of the United States did not amend the Constitutions natural born Citizen clause by supposedly now only requiring one citizen parent. Today, both father and mother must still be citizens at the time of the childs birth. What changed is that the wife does not simply follow the citizenship of her husband or vice versa. Each spouse must acquire their own independent U.S. citizenships and transmit their respective U.S. citizenship to their

child by inheritance. See Ankeny v. Governor of the State of Indiana, 916 N.E.2d 678 (Ind. Ct. App. 2009), transfer denied 929 N.E.2d 789 (Ind. 2010) (in footnote 12 also said that Minor followed the rule of unity of husband and wife when it said: Note that the Court in Minor contemplates only scenarios where both parents are either citizens or aliens, rather in the case of President Obama, whose mother was a U.S. citizen and father was a citizen of the United Kingdom). Finally, the purpose of the natural born Citizen clause was to have a child who would some day be President and Military Commander born in allegiance and jurisdiction only to the United States. Being born even to just one alien parent, causing the child to inherit that foreign parents allegiance and citizenship through jus sanguinis, would defeat the very national security purpose of the clause. We respectfully request that the Supreme Court grant certification. Respectfully submitted, s/Mario Apuzzo Mario Apuzzo cc: A. Genova, Esq.; A. C. Stephens, Esq; N. Purpura; T. Moran

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