Michele Bachmann kicked off the new legislative session by introducing a bill to repeal Obamacare, something that’s already been attempted 33 times by House Republicans.
It turns out Bachmann is not alone in giving a failed effort one more try. This time it’s Congressman Steve King. The Iowa Republican is once again advocating to “clarify” the portion of the 14th Amendment that protects birthright citizenship. The Amendment states that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside." King is not opposed to the Amendment on its face, but maintains that the framers did not account for illegal immigration.
In 2010, King told a Cityview, a local newspaper, that “the framers did not consider the babies of illegals when they framed the 14th amendment because we didn't have immigration law at the time, so they could not have wanted to confer automatic citizenship on the babies of people who were unlawfully in the United States."
Fast-forward to an election where Republicans performed abysmally among the Latino community and vowed to reach out to Hispanics. But nothing has changed for Steve King. A statement from King about this session’s ”Birthright Citizenship Act” reads: “We need a common-sense solution to fix the flawed interpretation of the Constitution’s citizenship clause, and ‘The Birthright Citizenship Act of 2013′ does just that.”
Thirteen of King’s fellow House Republicans have signed on as co-sponsors of the bill to make “anchor babies” (the American-born children of illegal immigrants) a thing of the past. One of the bill’s co-sponsors is Texas Republican Louie Gohmert, one of the first members of the “birther” crowd, the people who question whether President Obama was born in the United States.
Watch the Hardball sideshow above for Chris’s take on Steve King’s first move of the 113th Congress.