Though discredited by the Obama campaign and independent researchers, the idea that Barack Obama's birth certificate was falsified so he could claim U.S. birth won't die. Not if Bellevue attorney Stephen Pidgeon and 13 Washington voters persevere.
The state Supreme Court on Jan. 8 dismissed the voters' bids to withdraw the state's Electoral College votes to Barack Obama, giving the plaintiffs 30 days to file suit with the U.S. Supreme Court.
The court issued "the decision we expected," said Secretary of State communications director David Ammons, whose office was the subject of the challenge, noting that a similar case had been filed in King County Superior Court on the eve of the election. "Our point has always been that we have neither the legal authority nor the staff capacity to look behind all the qualifications of the presidential tickets put forth to us." Instead, he says, U.S. constitutional questions are best left to federal judges. "You really wouldn't want a patchwork of state courts dealing with questions like this one."
Pidgeon says his clients will explore other legal avenues to challenge the circumstances of the president-elect's birth ["Obama drama alive in WA court," Jan. 7-13], including, perhaps, refiling the case before the state's judiciary.
"We're exploring all our options," he says, to settle "the question of eligibility of the president, which we believe still has not been determined."
Pidgeon, who describes himself as a Christian who is "farther to the right than the wacky far right," quipped that Real Change readers should be advised "that I have adjusted my pyramid shaped tinfoil hat to only pick up only radio waves from Venus."