I've put a summary of all the Birther Bills I can find at:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/48031378/Birther-Bills

I'm far from happy with it but before I tinker with it any more I'd appreciate any feedback. I'm particularly worried about readibility - it's fine on my desktop screen but a struggle on my laptop. ( The underlying spreadsheet is great but doesn't upload to Scribd very well)

Some of bills are also on my Scribd page and the rest will be later today.

Wherever possible I've hyperlinked to the bill text at the individual state legislatures but that doesn't work for OK so I've created my own pdfs and linked to them.

I've included a checklist of the key requirements of each bill - I've had to exercise a bit of judgement on this to make it manageable and I need to double check it particularly since I did it on three different days!

I'll try to keep it up to date. I'm not expecting many more bills - maybe NH & PA - but it can be a bit difficult to track what's happening in the different legislatures.

BTW Montana has committee hearing on its Bill this morning so there may be some news out of that. Maine also had one scheduled for today but have postponed because of storm threats.

I had no idea there were so many until I saw your spreadsheet.

FANTASTIC job. Thanks so much.

Notes:

- "Residenses" last 14 years -- typo in column heading
- Angled column headings might be slightly easier to read in sans-serif
- Should there be a distinction between "2 citizen parents" and whatever proof of that is required? Just asking.
- Would you consider tinting the vertical columns -- one idea I had was tint the ones that without question are (or are not) legally absurd.

Curious that none seem to be asking for proof that a single parent is US citizen? I know some people believe that... is it not much used as an argument simply because everyone knows Obama meets that requirement? Kind of confirms the bias in their "scholarship".......

This is great to have all in one place. Front page project material. But even magnified, I can't read the headings. Maybe it's anal language weenie-ish, but I would suggest using the proper term used by each state for the disposition of the bills that fail rather than "DEAD". Most states re-use their bill numbers every session so any bill that didn't pass in the prior session expires. For example, in Arizona, the HB and SB status show as "Held in Committee" then they expired when the session ended.

Just a blurb. Not even close to WD's information. But, I thought I'd post the link.


Your Occasional Update on the Legislative Progress of Birtherism
Posted Wednesday, February 02, 2011 8:15 AM | By David Weigel
http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/weigel ... erism.aspx

Wow!

Just great! A lot of info here. I can full-screen it and zoom in to read it just fine. Have to scroll around, but to be expected with something so big.

Maybe shade every other column to make it easier to keep your place?

Thanks so much for doing it, WD!

Welsh Dragon, outstanding job. Just outstanding. I'm awestruck.

What program did you use to create it?

Well, thanks! Groovy thing to do.

Just Excel2007 then save as a PDF.I'm a numbers man at heart and after 29 years of using spreadsheet programs they're my default tool of choice. I tried uploading the spreadsheet directly into Scribd but it didn't work as well.

I'll be tinkering with a bit later to improve the readability.

I love spreadsheets! Now if someone could just do a process control chart of birthism, I'd be in heaven! ( All their data points would be below the LCL, though, so I guess it would just confirm epic fail)

Close! Actually, I think CL is the fail line. So by staying between UCL and LCL the chart confirms the birfer process is statistically stable as a process of perpetual failure.

Just a hunch, I am not a huge numbers guy.

This will be a terrific resource. Thank you, WD.

What language IS this? Even Google translate can't detect it.

What, "Upper/Lower Control Limit"?

He had a follow-up this morning, pointing out the extra-Constitutional requirements some of the bills have incorporated:

The Trouble with Birther Bills

For what it's worth, an unscientific poll of readers of Phoenix's Arizona Republic has 67% of the 192 people who have responded so far saying they OPPOSE any "birther bill" requiring birth certificate documentation from presidential candidates. I've perused through all the other questions in the survey, on a variety of topics, and to me the results seem pretty rational and accurate. But still, they're very obviously unscientific:

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/ ... ml?page=11

Nice piece of work WD. You are to be commended.

HEAR! HEAR!

To get things clear in my head I've been laying in my sick bed putting together this summary of my view of the current prospects for the Birther bills. Some of it's more speculative than other parts and it needs to be borne in mind that all the legislatures have ways of getting around their rules if they really want to:

AZ
This is looking pretty terminal at the moment. The Senate bill failed in Judiciary committee yesterday and the House Bill has not yet been referred to committee. By my reading of the AZ House deadlines, the last day for consideration of house bills is this Friday (18th Feb).

MT
This was tabled in committee yesterday after a tied vote on a “do pass” motion. It’s theoretically possible to resurrect it but it looks highly unlikely. The clock is also ticking the deadline for transmittal of House bills to the Senate is Thursday 24th Feb.

CT
Such is the Democratic majority that I regard this bill as irrelevant.I don't think it's got a snowball's chance.

ME
There is likely to be a committee work session on this next week and although the bill requires a lot of work I wouldn’t be surprised if it progressed. But it’s already clear that it does not apply to presidential candidates! It applies to primary elections and ME dosn't have Presidential Primaries

TX
Rep.Berman has introduced two bills and so far they haven’t moved at all. TX has a longer legislative session than most so it’s still early days but Rep.Berman seems to be very much an enemy of Speaker Straus – Berman had called for a Christian Speaker (Straus is Jewish) and forced an unnecessary vote in caucus – so I don’t anticipate him getting much co-operation.

GA
This bill has been referred to Judiciary Committee. There’s no sign yet of them taking it up and the committee is dominated by attorneys so I can’t see it falling for some of the faux legal arguments the birthers love. The sponsor seems to be a bit out on a limb and to quote GA birther Zeb Blanchard at the P&E:


OK
Three Senate bills here and all have been referred to Rules Committee. No sign of any action at committee yet and there’s deadline of Feb 28th for bills to be reported out of committee. Tick,tock,tick,tock.

IN
This Senate bill was referred to Elections Committee on Jan 5th. Nothing has come out of that committee about any thing since Jan 10th. There seems to be no committee meeting scheduled this week. The deadline for 3rd reading is Wednesday Feb 23rd and in IN 2nd reading doesn’t happen until after the committee reports so doesn’t look as if this is going anywhere.

MO
This fairly harmless bill was referred to Elections Committee last week. May pass – it’s got a string of co-sponsors but only two are on committee. It only asks for proof of US citizenship and ID but there are a few practical problems with that so maybe they’ll decide it’s not worth the effort.

NE
One of the more extreme bills. It’s been referred to Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee. No hearing scheduled yet but there doesn’t seem to be any impending deadline so there’s still time.

TN
TN is only just getting going. Bill is referred to State and Local Government Committee but it’s too early to judge what’s happening.

HI
Not really a birther bill, it’s been referred to committee but no hearing scheduled yet. I’m not paying much attention to it.

SD
Not really a birther bill and has been defered to the 41st Day . If passed it might have caused problems for candidates for presidential elections from 2048 onwards!

NH
Despite Orly's trumpeting NH is a no-show and it's too late now.

PA
Orly and WND thought there be one but it's a no show so far.

I'm sure this has been covered, and I'm only thinking about it because I'm working on a project about adoptees, but what about those states (such as NJ) that do not allow adoptees access to their original birth certificates? Does that mean adoptees would not be able to run for president if any of those states pass one of these ridiculous proposals? And wouldn't that lead to a hum-dinger of a civil rights lawsuit?

Don't recall it being mentioned until a short mention I made about TN last week. It does seem to be one of the more dramatic flaws in these bills.

Since "they" are adopted, we can't be really sure of where "they" came from...right?

This goes to one of the most fundamental flaws in the birther world view. The question of whether a candidate is a natural born citizen is subject to the political question doctrine. In other words, even if someone with standing were to file suit on the issue, the courts would simply respond by punting to the political branches of government, i.e., Congress, and the electoral college. And Congress for its part has already made it abundantly clear that it is not remotely interested in any birther issues, regardless of party loyalties. Senate Resolution 511, expressing the will of the Senate that John McCain was a natural born citizen notwithstanding any questions raised about his birth, passed by a vote of 100-0.

The exact same thing will happen should we ever end up with a candidate who was adopted and whose birth certification is murky. (Unlike Obama's, whose certification is clear, but I digress.)

As I understand it, Franklin has a tendency to introduce TONS of new bills at the start of every legislative session, almost none of which go anywhere. It's not his politics that are a problem; it's that he's a something of a crank.

Right now on RC Blogtalk Radio - Senator - "Birfer Bill" Beavers R, TN - Proponent of Tennessee Birfer Bills.

Later on, we will be serving rare, medium rare, medium and some very well done from the spit.