18 May Dual Citizen, Supreme Court Justice
There’s no legal obstacle to appointing a dual citizen to the Supreme Court. In fact, in contrast to qualifications for Congress and the Presidency, the Constitution sets no citizenship requirements of any kind for justices of the Supreme Court.
Now it’s unlikely in the extreme that Obama will appoint a foreigner to the Court, although it would be an interesting little parlor game to come up with a short list composed of noncitizens only.
But the prospect of a dual citizen on the Court is much less implausible. Jennifer Granholm was born in Canada and may now (unwittingly) be a Canadian citizen. The latest round of additional names includes at least one other foreign-born possibility. (There have been a handful of justices born outside the United States — the most recent being Felix Frankfurter — but in a prior age much less tolerant of multiple allegiances none would have maintained their original nationality.)
I don’t think there would be anything wrong with a dual-citizen justice. After all, the governor of our largest state has another nationality, and there is a global trend towards reassessing restrictions on dual citizen office-holding. Loyalty objections are a red herring these days. How would a justice who held another citizenship be compromised, at least in a way qualitatively different from other conflict-of-interest problems? Plural citizenship is a fact of globalization; no reason our leaderships shouldn’t reflect it.
I must say that as an American who was born in Liberia when my parents – in the US diplomatic corps – were stationed there and one who lived 17 years in Paris and has adopted two children who are both Europeans and Americans by right, I find very peculiar the idea of even questioning the possibility of a qualified dual citizen being able to sit on the court. I suspect that there may be Luddites out there who would seize on that kind of point to try to torpedo a nomination, but – especially in a country that is essentially a construct of immigration/enslavement except for the Native Americans – the possibility of a second nationality would seem not an issue. And my kids are not Nottebohm’s with a nationality of convenience. They are truly Europeans – though some Europeans may look askance at them, and truly Americans – though some Americans may look askance at them. In fact, I was talking the other day with my sister about her being an African African-American being able to speak of Africa not as some distant place but as a place where she was born and lived, and an African-American American as someone… Read more »