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Constitutional Oversight Posse
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Following is a letter sent by mail to the California Secretary of State by two COP Board members. COP members are requested to send similar letters to their own state secretaries. In addition, California residents are requested to send as many additional copies to the California Secretary of State as possible using certified mail with return receipt requested to make sure that the letter is received.
If you are not a COP member but wish to use this as an outline for your own use, please feel free to do so. If you would like to become a COP member, please fill out the Contact Form on the home page and we will be happy to sign you up.
Please email the COP at luchadora41@gmail.com regarding any response or lack of response to your letter. We are collecting evidence.
This is the first of many actions of the COP.
September 29, 2012
Debra Bowen
California Secretary of State
1500 11th Street
Sacramento, CA. 95814
Honorable Secretary of State Bowen:
I am contacting you regarding your role as California Secretary of State and the certification of candidate Barack Obama in the 2012 election. As I'm sure you are aware, there are numerous challenges to the constitutional eligibility of candidate Obama to run for President of the United States. As an example, I refer you to the letter at http://www.wnd.com/files/2012/09/BauerLetter.pdf written on August 29, 2012, by Attorney Larry Klayman to the General Counsel of the DNC, Robert Bauer, Esq.
Please understand that to date none of the citizens’ servants in the federal or state governments have stepped up to the responsibility to ensure that the legitimate uncertainties about candidate Obama’s eligibility are properly investigated and resolved. As citizens, who are ultimately responsible for enforcing the Constitution, we are left with no other choice than to select an official and assign that person the ultimate responsibility for doing the job that the Constitution requires. We choose you. We the People of the State of California will hold you personally responsible if you, knowing the above facts, certify without appropriate investigation that candidate Obama is constitutionally eligible to run for President of the United States.
A certification is solemn testimony that any doubts about a candidate’s eligibility have been thoroughly and openly heard, investigated, and resolved. Thorough and open hearings have nowhere been allowed or conducted. No investigations have been either acknowledged or chartered by state or federal authorities. The question of candidate Obama’s eligibility remains unresolved, much to the anger of all who support the rule of law and the Constitution. Unless or until you have overseen the necessary actions to overcome these deficiencies, you must de-certify Mr. Obama as a candidate for the 2012 election.
We recognize that there is a great deal of pressure put on officials like yourself by the Democratic Party and the Obama administration to ignore or whitewash potential violations of the U.S. Constitution. Rest assured that these pressures are nothing compared to the legal pressures that will be applied if you should fail to carry out this assigned duty. We hereby make it publicly clear that you are the one person in our state government on whom the responsibility to vet the candidate in question lies. Your response will tell us clearly whether you are on the side of law and order and the Constitution or whether you are an enemy of the Constitution. All excuses and passing of the buck now stop with you.
The Constitutional Oversight Posse is a nationwide organization with members in every state. It is our mission to hold to account all who participate in the travesty of refusing to ensure that the requirements of the Constitution are met, whether or not these people remain in their respective positions. Those who have sworn an oath to protect and defend the Constitution must uphold that oath, even if it means admitting that a mistake was made in not properly vetting candidate Obama prior to his first term.
In closing, please allow me to remind you of the oath that you were required to take under Article 20 of the California State Constitution. The first paragraph reads:
I, ______, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which I am about to enter.
Violation of an oath is not without consequence. We trust that you will honor it.
Respectfully,
(Your name and address)
We need to hear from you by October 15. Information regarding actions that you are taking and the schedule for these actions should be sent to the COP Executive Board by email at luchadora41@gmail.com. Any deficiency in your actions will be publicly announced immediately after the October 15 deadline.
P. S.: At a minimum you should hold a hearing with ten hours of solid testimony. The hearing should be announced two weeks in advance and open to the public and the media. Five hours should be allocated to testimony by parties selected by the COP, and five hours should be allocated to testimony by parties defending candidate Obama’s eligibility. Each side should be given time for a rebuttal and a rebuttal to the rebuttal. If one side should fail to fill its time slots, then the unused time should be ceded to the other party. After hearing the testimony you, as Secretary of State, should render a judgment on the question of whether or not further discovery should be required to enable certification of candidate Obama prior to the election. The hearing should be scheduled to be held on or about October 19, allowing time for further required discovery, if needed, prior to the election.
Progress Report 10/18/2012:
Following is an email sent to COP members on October 18, 2012, along with a second letter mailed to the California Secretary of State, after receiving no response from this government official. Members were encouraged to modify the letter to send to their own secretaries of state.
Dear COP members,
We have word from several members who have participated in our campaign of letters to state secretaries. Particularly, we would like to recognize Barbara and Betty of TX, Jim of WA, Robert of MI, and Rosemary of OH for letter-writing actions in their states, and we would like to thank members Andrea, for efforts to get the word out, and Tom, for his 50-states effort with the Klayman letter. Board members Ed and Kristy covered CA, and Debbie covered NV.
The news so far is that there have been no reported responses by state secretaries to any of the letters we sent. This is not a surprise. This lack of response, especially when we have proof that the letters were received, furnishes evidence that will come in handy when we begin to prosecute their violations of the oath of office. Every member who has this evidence is requested to notify us and to safeguard the evidence including the returned receipts and copies of the letters.
To gather even more compelling evidence we formulated a follow-up letter to be sent to unresponsive state secretaries. The letter for the California Secretary of State is attached and also included below. Members who have received no responses from their state secretaries to a previous letter are welcome to modify this letter for their states and send it in. Once again, certified mail with return-receipt-requested is the right mode. If ignored, these letters will furnish additional evidence of the unwillingness of these state secretaries to obey and support the Constitution as required by their oaths. A lack of a suitable response to this letter will put the state secretaries on a public list of enemies of the Constitution. We will aim to hold them accountable.
All members deserve thanks for being a part of the COP efforts. We intend to make sure that these efforts are worthwhile.
(Sender’s address)
October 17, 2012
Debra Bowen
California Secretary of State
1500 11th Street
Sacramento, CA. 95814
Honorable Secretary of State Bowen:
The Constitutional Oversight Posse (COP) has received no response from your office to our members’ letters dated September 29, 2012, and no indication that you have called for a timely hearing regarding candidate Obama’s eligibility to run for the office of President of the United States. Regrettably, we must inform you for the last time that failure to de-certify candidate Obama until such time that overwhelming evidence concerning his ineligibility is overcome will result in a concerted effort on the part of citizens of California and citizens of the United States to secure your prosecution for high crimes against the Constitution of the United States. In our opinion there is a strong possibility that such prosecution would result in your being sentenced to spend several months in a penitentiary.
Please recognize that, according to the information candidate Obama has made public regarding his parentage, candidate Obama IS NOT A NATURAL BORN CITIZEN by the definition under which the Constitution was ratified. There has been no amendment under which any other definition of “natural born citizen“ has been ratified. Any court decisions counter to the ratified definition of “natural born citizen” are unconstitutional. Consequently, candidate Obama is not eligible for the office of President of the United States unless he can provide evidence that Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., was a citizen of the United States or that candidate Obama’s father was a person other than Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., and that the real father was a citizen of the United States. The evidence currently extant is overwhelming that candidate Obama is not eligible to be President of the United States.
Please recognize, also, that there is no provision in either the Constitution of the State of California or the Constitution of the United States that grants immunity against prosecution to public officials who knowingly and purposefully violate their oaths to defend the Constitution of the United States or to bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States and who may be found guilty of aiding and abetting the commission of a high crime.
Please recognize furthermore that the determination of candidate Obama’s eligibility to run for the office of President in California’s election is at this time entirely within your purview and entirely your responsibility. All other government officials and political party officials responsible for certifying candidate Obama’s eligibility have reneged on their responsibilities to properly vet the candidate. None of them dealt seriously with the widely published and credible evidence that candidate Obama is not eligible under the Constitution to hold the office of President. They have procrastinated and failed to carry out their duties, and they have passed the buck to you. You are now the last recourse for the many concerned citizens who have been petitioning every branch of the federal and state governments in an effort to address this grievance. You are the only one remaining who can address the grievance.
The other officials were extremely irresponsible, for they have pushed the decision point precariously close to the election. They have made the consequences of the disqualification of candidate Obama much worse than those consequences would have been if the issue had been properly addressed at the earliest stage. You can blame them for the predicament that you are in. You cannot, however, escape the responsibility that now befalls you.
Finally, please recognize that citizens who support the rule of law upon which this nation was built are fed up with the increasing rate at which violations of the Constitution have been taking place with impunity over the last several decades. These citizens are appalled at the incidence of imprisonment of people such as Lt. Colonel Terry Lakin who have sought to have provisions of the Constitution enforced. These citizens are anxious to have government officials imprisoned for their violations of the Constitution. These citizens, for good reason, would like nothing more than to make an example of a government official who has been instrumental in permitting violations of the Constitution. We issue you this warning so that you will have one last opportunity to avoid being the government official who will become the example of what happens when officials violate their oaths and aid in activities that violate the Constitution.
We already have sufficient evidence to prove your violation of the oath of office and your intentional disregard for the demands of the Constitution in the event that you should fail to de-certify candidate Obama. Should you and your office fail to heed this last warning, such failure shall constitute incontrovertible evidence that you are not interested in upholding the Constitution and that you intend to proceed as an enemy of the Constitution despite fair warning and despite attempts to inform you of the legal ramifications of your actions or inactions.
It is our hope that you will not join the ranks of the likes of Governor Rod Blagojevich. Please be aware, however, that a failure on your part to heed the calls for candidate Obama’s de-certification will result in legal attempts by citizens of California and citizens of the United States to bring justice and that these attempts to bring justice will follow you indefinitely whether you are in or out of office. As the tables turn in the world of politics, your actions or inactions on the responsibilities before you will be brought to account.
Respectfully,
On behalf of the Executive Board of the Constitutional Oversight Posse
(Sender’s name and signature)
Progress Report 11/10/2012
Following is a letter sent by the Washington Secretary of State to COP member John Hardesty, followed by the COP's response to the Washington Secretary of State:
Secretary of State Sam Reed October 8, 2012
Legislative Building
P.O. Box 40220
Olympia, WA. 98504-0220
Mr. John Hardesty
(address)
Dear Mr. Hardesty,
I have enclosed a recent court ruling on the matter you referred to in your letter, which is also part of this letter.
While you have raised a number of issues, the bottom line is that the law as it stands does not give the Secretary of State the authority to remove any candidate, be they President or a Vancouver City Council candidate, from the ballot regardless of their standing. It gives that responsibility to the courts. Linda Jordan went to the Thurston County Superior court to petition for Mr. Obama's name to be removed from the ballot and the court ruled against her. I have included that ruling in this letter. She is now challenging that ruling in the state Supreme Court. She has the legal right to do so and that is the legal process such a request takes.
If the Supreme Court rules in her favor, then we would remove his name from the ballot or not count the votes for Mr. Obama (since the military ballots have already gone out with his name on it).
While I know this doesn't satisfy your request, we take state and federal law seriously. In Washington state the framers of the state constitution did not want to have all aspects of the electoral process in one person or office, so they gave the counties the role of executing the elections, the Secretary of State the role of overseeing elections, and the courts the role of deciding the legality of elections, to include a candidate's credentials. There is no legal authority that directly allows for the Secretary of State to remove someone from the ballot - if he did so he would be, what I term, an activist Secretary.
Lastly, I will provide you with this bit of legalese: If you believe this agency has failed to perform a duty imposed upon it by state law or the state constitution, you have the right to request a writ of mandamus from the Thurston County Superior Court requiring the agency to perform that duty. The statutory provisions regarding writs of mandamus are found in sections 7.16.150 through 7.16.280 of the Revised Code of Washington and the statute governing the jurisdiction of cases against state officers is found in RCW 4.12.020(2).
Patrick McDonald
Assistant to the Secretary of State
State of Washington
The COP's response to the Washington Secretary of State:
November 8, 2012
Patrick McDonald
Assistant to the Secretary of State
State of Washington
416 Sid Snyder Ave. S.W.
Legislative Building
Olympia, WA 98501
Dear Assistant Secretary of State McDonald:
In regard to your response on October 8, 2012, to a letter from one of our members, Mr. John Hardesty, I commend you and Secretary of State Reed for taking the time to address the issue of candidate eligibility challenges. Engaging in this discourse will prove to be educational to us, to your office, and to our members.
Your response graphically points out the essence of the problem. Quoting from your letter: “In Washington state the framers of the state constitution did not want to have all aspects of the electoral process in one person or office, so they gave the counties the role of executing the elections, the Secretary of State the role of overseeing elections, and the courts the role of deciding the legality of elections, to include a candidate’s credentials. There is no legal authority that directly allows for the Secretary of State to remove someone from the ballot—if he did so he would be, what I term, an activist Secretary.”
Quoting from the court’s opinion in the case of Linda Jordan vs. Secretary of State Sam Reed dated August 29, 2012: “In the case brought by plaintiff Jordan, she alleges a number of ways in which the Secretary of State has failed his responsibilities and violated the law. The Secretary of State has answered by responding to the allegations and by contending that this court, or any state court for that matter, lacks subject matter jurisdiction to determine the eligibility of a candidate for president of the United States, and by contending that plaintiff has failed to join an indispensable party, President Obama, in this lawsuit.”
In the first quote you say that the state courts have the role of deciding a candidate’s credentials. The second quote says the Secretary of State contends that no state court has subject matter jurisdiction to determine the eligibility of a candidate for president. How can both statements be true? They come from the same office.
Is it any wonder that citizens feel they have been getting the run-around at every corner? One bureaucrat well-versed in legalese passes the plaintiff off to another bureaucrat well-versed in legalese. The buck stops nowhere. Is it any surprise that aware citizens conclude that they have no recourse? Is it any surprise that citizens are now deciding that it is government operatives who must now be given no recourse?
Secretary of State Sam Reed is a well-respected Republican. So are most of the members of the COP. We would not expect duplicity on this issue coming from a member of the Republican Party.
Secretary of State Reed can still, in his election oversight capacity, de-certify candidate Obama. He should do so if for no other reason than the fact that Barack Obama, according to his avowed parentage, is not a natural born citizen as defined by those who ratified this requirement in the Constitution. If his father was not a U. S. citizen at the time of candidate Obama’s birth, then candidate Obama’s parents were not both U. S. citizens, and candidate Obama is therefore not a natural born citizen of the U. S. Then, providing candidate Obama was not born prior to the adoption of the Constitution, candidate Obama is not constitutionally eligible to hold the office of President of the United States. Any court that says otherwise is in violation of the Constitution. Nowhere was this fact given attention in court cases relevant to Barack Obama’s candidacy.
If Secretary of State Reed will de-certify Barack Obama’s eligibility pending discovery of any evidence countering Mr. Obama’s ineligibility for office, Secretary of State Reed will become a hero to all who cherish the Constitution. If Secretary of State Reed fails to de-certify Mr. Obama’s eligibility, then the obviousness of the lack of recourse of the citizenry in defending the Constitution will be overwhelming. In this case I am afraid that Secretary of State Reed will be held as a bad example when the issue reaches prominence.
Please do not claim that declaring Barack Obama ineligible after the election has taken place is not within the Secretary of State’s purview. We all know the truth to be otherwise. As you said, “the framers of the state constitution…gave…the Secretary of State the role of overseeing elections.” That oversight does not stop on the day of the election.
Respectfully, on behalf of the Executive Board of the Constitutional Oversight Posse,
Edward B. Stoneham, Ph. D.
Progress Report 4/13/2013:
Following is a letter sent by Ed Stoneham, President of the COP (Constitutional Oversight Posse), to California Attorney General Kamala Harris, after receiving no response from previous correspondence to CA. Secretary of State Debra Bowen:
March 30, 2013
Kamala D. Harris
Attorney General of the State of California
Attorney General’s Office
California Department of Justice
Attn: Public Inquiry Unit
P. O. Box 944255
Sacramento, CA. 94244-2550
Honorable Attorney General Harris:
We of the Constitutional Oversight Posse regret having to add to your burdens as a public servant, but we must petition you, the officer of next resort, to use the authority vested in your office to correct a blatant violation of the oath of office and to restore discipline to an important segment of our state government. We petition you to carry out appropriate legal action against California Secretary of State Debra Bowen for neglecting, despite repeated urgings by citizens’ groups, to adequately investigate the apparent ineligibility of candidate Barack H. Obama to run for the office of President of the United States on the California ballot.
We, like others before us, petitioned Secretary Bowen with a request that she perform previously neglected duties of her office by conducting a hearing regarding the apparent ineligibility under the Constitution of the United States of candidate Barack H. Obama for the office of President of the United States. Secretary Bowen failed to respond. Her negligence and violations have resulted in damages to the nation on the order of trillions of dollars and to California on the order of hundreds of billions of dollars. It is your duty to bring her to account.
As required by Artide 20 Section 3 of the state constitution, Secretary Bowen, like yourself, swore to the following oath:
"I, ______________, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which I am about to enter.
"And I do further swear (or affirm) that I do not advocate, nor am I a member of any party or organization, political or otherwise, that now advocates the overthrow of the Government of the United States or of the State of California by force or violence or other unlawful means; that within the five years immediately preceding the taking of this oath (or affirmation) I have not been a member of any party or organization, political or otherwise, that advocated the overthrow of the Government of the United States or of the State of California by force or violence or other unlawful means except as follows: ________________________________________________________________
(If no affiliations, write in the words "No Exceptions")
and that during such time as I hold the office of ________________ of the State of California I will not advocate nor become a member of any party or organization, political or otherwise, that advocates the overthrow of the Government of the United States or of the State of California by force or violence or other unlawful means."
Enclosed with this letter are copies of two letters that we of the COP (Constitutional Oversight Posse) sent to California Secretary of State Bowen. The letters were received by the Secretary’s office, as evidenced by return receipts in our possession. The Secretary’s Office took no action in response. It is our understanding that a similar indication of negligence resulted from a letter sent by Attorney Larry Klayman, founder of Judicial Watch, in his earlier attempt to inform Secretary Bowen of a potential breach in the certification of candidates for federal office on the state ballot. There are likely to be numerous other instances providing evidence of Secretary Bowen’s willful negligence and lack of performance of her constitutionally-prescribed duties.
It is now incumbent upon you to initiate prosecution. You are the officer of next resort. Your diligent effort in this case will be most welcome and will be appreciated by all who depend on our elected representatives to carry out the duties of their oaths and to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against potential usurpers.
In the interest of clarity and full disclosure we must reiterate some points of which you are probably already aware. Failure of a state attorney general to prosecute a potential constitutional crime of significant magnitude after adequate evidence of such crime has been disclosed necessarily makes the attorney general an accessory to the crime. A government officer sworn to support and defend the Constitution of the United States who becomes an accessory to another officer’s violation of the oath of office is subject to similar prosecution for negligence and violation of the oath of office. It is both a prerogative and a requirement of your office that you, as Attorney General, bring appropriate charges against Secretary Bowen and do so within a reasonable period of time. As a guideline, due diligence on the part of the Attorney General in a case such as this one may be demonstrated by the public filing of charges against the errant Secretary of State and the initiation of prosecution within four weeks of receipt of the petition.
We apologize for the apparent harshness of our letter. Please understand that it is our intent to be very clear in our communications in order to give you the information that you need to do what is right under the constitutions of the state and of the nation and to do so in a manner that will be perceived by the citizens as duly diligent. In return, we ask you to inform us, at the address given below or through the email contact information at our web site (http://www.constitutionaloversightposse.org), in a timely manner of any actions taken by your office in carrying out the duties described in this letter. This information will help us to avoid taking unnecessary or premature steps toward rectification at the next level. We wish you the greatest success in carrying out the duties of your office and in gaining the respect of the citizens who hold the Constitution of the United States to be the primary entity of our government.
Respectfully,
Edward B. Stoneham, Ph. D.
President of the Board
Constitutional Oversight Posse
If you are not a COP member but wish to use this as an outline for your own use, please feel free to do so. If you would like to become a COP member, please fill out the Contact Form on the home page and we will be happy to sign you up.
Please email the COP at luchadora41@gmail.com regarding any response or lack of response to your letter. We are collecting evidence.
This is the first of many actions of the COP.
September 29, 2012
Debra Bowen
California Secretary of State
1500 11th Street
Sacramento, CA. 95814
Honorable Secretary of State Bowen:
I am contacting you regarding your role as California Secretary of State and the certification of candidate Barack Obama in the 2012 election. As I'm sure you are aware, there are numerous challenges to the constitutional eligibility of candidate Obama to run for President of the United States. As an example, I refer you to the letter at http://www.wnd.com/files/2012/09/BauerLetter.pdf written on August 29, 2012, by Attorney Larry Klayman to the General Counsel of the DNC, Robert Bauer, Esq.
Please understand that to date none of the citizens’ servants in the federal or state governments have stepped up to the responsibility to ensure that the legitimate uncertainties about candidate Obama’s eligibility are properly investigated and resolved. As citizens, who are ultimately responsible for enforcing the Constitution, we are left with no other choice than to select an official and assign that person the ultimate responsibility for doing the job that the Constitution requires. We choose you. We the People of the State of California will hold you personally responsible if you, knowing the above facts, certify without appropriate investigation that candidate Obama is constitutionally eligible to run for President of the United States.
A certification is solemn testimony that any doubts about a candidate’s eligibility have been thoroughly and openly heard, investigated, and resolved. Thorough and open hearings have nowhere been allowed or conducted. No investigations have been either acknowledged or chartered by state or federal authorities. The question of candidate Obama’s eligibility remains unresolved, much to the anger of all who support the rule of law and the Constitution. Unless or until you have overseen the necessary actions to overcome these deficiencies, you must de-certify Mr. Obama as a candidate for the 2012 election.
We recognize that there is a great deal of pressure put on officials like yourself by the Democratic Party and the Obama administration to ignore or whitewash potential violations of the U.S. Constitution. Rest assured that these pressures are nothing compared to the legal pressures that will be applied if you should fail to carry out this assigned duty. We hereby make it publicly clear that you are the one person in our state government on whom the responsibility to vet the candidate in question lies. Your response will tell us clearly whether you are on the side of law and order and the Constitution or whether you are an enemy of the Constitution. All excuses and passing of the buck now stop with you.
The Constitutional Oversight Posse is a nationwide organization with members in every state. It is our mission to hold to account all who participate in the travesty of refusing to ensure that the requirements of the Constitution are met, whether or not these people remain in their respective positions. Those who have sworn an oath to protect and defend the Constitution must uphold that oath, even if it means admitting that a mistake was made in not properly vetting candidate Obama prior to his first term.
In closing, please allow me to remind you of the oath that you were required to take under Article 20 of the California State Constitution. The first paragraph reads:
I, ______, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which I am about to enter.
Violation of an oath is not without consequence. We trust that you will honor it.
Respectfully,
(Your name and address)
We need to hear from you by October 15. Information regarding actions that you are taking and the schedule for these actions should be sent to the COP Executive Board by email at luchadora41@gmail.com. Any deficiency in your actions will be publicly announced immediately after the October 15 deadline.
P. S.: At a minimum you should hold a hearing with ten hours of solid testimony. The hearing should be announced two weeks in advance and open to the public and the media. Five hours should be allocated to testimony by parties selected by the COP, and five hours should be allocated to testimony by parties defending candidate Obama’s eligibility. Each side should be given time for a rebuttal and a rebuttal to the rebuttal. If one side should fail to fill its time slots, then the unused time should be ceded to the other party. After hearing the testimony you, as Secretary of State, should render a judgment on the question of whether or not further discovery should be required to enable certification of candidate Obama prior to the election. The hearing should be scheduled to be held on or about October 19, allowing time for further required discovery, if needed, prior to the election.
Progress Report 10/18/2012:
Following is an email sent to COP members on October 18, 2012, along with a second letter mailed to the California Secretary of State, after receiving no response from this government official. Members were encouraged to modify the letter to send to their own secretaries of state.
Dear COP members,
We have word from several members who have participated in our campaign of letters to state secretaries. Particularly, we would like to recognize Barbara and Betty of TX, Jim of WA, Robert of MI, and Rosemary of OH for letter-writing actions in their states, and we would like to thank members Andrea, for efforts to get the word out, and Tom, for his 50-states effort with the Klayman letter. Board members Ed and Kristy covered CA, and Debbie covered NV.
The news so far is that there have been no reported responses by state secretaries to any of the letters we sent. This is not a surprise. This lack of response, especially when we have proof that the letters were received, furnishes evidence that will come in handy when we begin to prosecute their violations of the oath of office. Every member who has this evidence is requested to notify us and to safeguard the evidence including the returned receipts and copies of the letters.
To gather even more compelling evidence we formulated a follow-up letter to be sent to unresponsive state secretaries. The letter for the California Secretary of State is attached and also included below. Members who have received no responses from their state secretaries to a previous letter are welcome to modify this letter for their states and send it in. Once again, certified mail with return-receipt-requested is the right mode. If ignored, these letters will furnish additional evidence of the unwillingness of these state secretaries to obey and support the Constitution as required by their oaths. A lack of a suitable response to this letter will put the state secretaries on a public list of enemies of the Constitution. We will aim to hold them accountable.
All members deserve thanks for being a part of the COP efforts. We intend to make sure that these efforts are worthwhile.
(Sender’s address)
October 17, 2012
Debra Bowen
California Secretary of State
1500 11th Street
Sacramento, CA. 95814
Honorable Secretary of State Bowen:
The Constitutional Oversight Posse (COP) has received no response from your office to our members’ letters dated September 29, 2012, and no indication that you have called for a timely hearing regarding candidate Obama’s eligibility to run for the office of President of the United States. Regrettably, we must inform you for the last time that failure to de-certify candidate Obama until such time that overwhelming evidence concerning his ineligibility is overcome will result in a concerted effort on the part of citizens of California and citizens of the United States to secure your prosecution for high crimes against the Constitution of the United States. In our opinion there is a strong possibility that such prosecution would result in your being sentenced to spend several months in a penitentiary.
Please recognize that, according to the information candidate Obama has made public regarding his parentage, candidate Obama IS NOT A NATURAL BORN CITIZEN by the definition under which the Constitution was ratified. There has been no amendment under which any other definition of “natural born citizen“ has been ratified. Any court decisions counter to the ratified definition of “natural born citizen” are unconstitutional. Consequently, candidate Obama is not eligible for the office of President of the United States unless he can provide evidence that Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., was a citizen of the United States or that candidate Obama’s father was a person other than Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., and that the real father was a citizen of the United States. The evidence currently extant is overwhelming that candidate Obama is not eligible to be President of the United States.
Please recognize, also, that there is no provision in either the Constitution of the State of California or the Constitution of the United States that grants immunity against prosecution to public officials who knowingly and purposefully violate their oaths to defend the Constitution of the United States or to bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States and who may be found guilty of aiding and abetting the commission of a high crime.
Please recognize furthermore that the determination of candidate Obama’s eligibility to run for the office of President in California’s election is at this time entirely within your purview and entirely your responsibility. All other government officials and political party officials responsible for certifying candidate Obama’s eligibility have reneged on their responsibilities to properly vet the candidate. None of them dealt seriously with the widely published and credible evidence that candidate Obama is not eligible under the Constitution to hold the office of President. They have procrastinated and failed to carry out their duties, and they have passed the buck to you. You are now the last recourse for the many concerned citizens who have been petitioning every branch of the federal and state governments in an effort to address this grievance. You are the only one remaining who can address the grievance.
The other officials were extremely irresponsible, for they have pushed the decision point precariously close to the election. They have made the consequences of the disqualification of candidate Obama much worse than those consequences would have been if the issue had been properly addressed at the earliest stage. You can blame them for the predicament that you are in. You cannot, however, escape the responsibility that now befalls you.
Finally, please recognize that citizens who support the rule of law upon which this nation was built are fed up with the increasing rate at which violations of the Constitution have been taking place with impunity over the last several decades. These citizens are appalled at the incidence of imprisonment of people such as Lt. Colonel Terry Lakin who have sought to have provisions of the Constitution enforced. These citizens are anxious to have government officials imprisoned for their violations of the Constitution. These citizens, for good reason, would like nothing more than to make an example of a government official who has been instrumental in permitting violations of the Constitution. We issue you this warning so that you will have one last opportunity to avoid being the government official who will become the example of what happens when officials violate their oaths and aid in activities that violate the Constitution.
We already have sufficient evidence to prove your violation of the oath of office and your intentional disregard for the demands of the Constitution in the event that you should fail to de-certify candidate Obama. Should you and your office fail to heed this last warning, such failure shall constitute incontrovertible evidence that you are not interested in upholding the Constitution and that you intend to proceed as an enemy of the Constitution despite fair warning and despite attempts to inform you of the legal ramifications of your actions or inactions.
It is our hope that you will not join the ranks of the likes of Governor Rod Blagojevich. Please be aware, however, that a failure on your part to heed the calls for candidate Obama’s de-certification will result in legal attempts by citizens of California and citizens of the United States to bring justice and that these attempts to bring justice will follow you indefinitely whether you are in or out of office. As the tables turn in the world of politics, your actions or inactions on the responsibilities before you will be brought to account.
Respectfully,
On behalf of the Executive Board of the Constitutional Oversight Posse
(Sender’s name and signature)
Progress Report 11/10/2012
Following is a letter sent by the Washington Secretary of State to COP member John Hardesty, followed by the COP's response to the Washington Secretary of State:
Secretary of State Sam Reed October 8, 2012
Legislative Building
P.O. Box 40220
Olympia, WA. 98504-0220
Mr. John Hardesty
(address)
Dear Mr. Hardesty,
I have enclosed a recent court ruling on the matter you referred to in your letter, which is also part of this letter.
While you have raised a number of issues, the bottom line is that the law as it stands does not give the Secretary of State the authority to remove any candidate, be they President or a Vancouver City Council candidate, from the ballot regardless of their standing. It gives that responsibility to the courts. Linda Jordan went to the Thurston County Superior court to petition for Mr. Obama's name to be removed from the ballot and the court ruled against her. I have included that ruling in this letter. She is now challenging that ruling in the state Supreme Court. She has the legal right to do so and that is the legal process such a request takes.
If the Supreme Court rules in her favor, then we would remove his name from the ballot or not count the votes for Mr. Obama (since the military ballots have already gone out with his name on it).
While I know this doesn't satisfy your request, we take state and federal law seriously. In Washington state the framers of the state constitution did not want to have all aspects of the electoral process in one person or office, so they gave the counties the role of executing the elections, the Secretary of State the role of overseeing elections, and the courts the role of deciding the legality of elections, to include a candidate's credentials. There is no legal authority that directly allows for the Secretary of State to remove someone from the ballot - if he did so he would be, what I term, an activist Secretary.
Lastly, I will provide you with this bit of legalese: If you believe this agency has failed to perform a duty imposed upon it by state law or the state constitution, you have the right to request a writ of mandamus from the Thurston County Superior Court requiring the agency to perform that duty. The statutory provisions regarding writs of mandamus are found in sections 7.16.150 through 7.16.280 of the Revised Code of Washington and the statute governing the jurisdiction of cases against state officers is found in RCW 4.12.020(2).
Patrick McDonald
Assistant to the Secretary of State
State of Washington
The COP's response to the Washington Secretary of State:
November 8, 2012
Patrick McDonald
Assistant to the Secretary of State
State of Washington
416 Sid Snyder Ave. S.W.
Legislative Building
Olympia, WA 98501
Dear Assistant Secretary of State McDonald:
In regard to your response on October 8, 2012, to a letter from one of our members, Mr. John Hardesty, I commend you and Secretary of State Reed for taking the time to address the issue of candidate eligibility challenges. Engaging in this discourse will prove to be educational to us, to your office, and to our members.
Your response graphically points out the essence of the problem. Quoting from your letter: “In Washington state the framers of the state constitution did not want to have all aspects of the electoral process in one person or office, so they gave the counties the role of executing the elections, the Secretary of State the role of overseeing elections, and the courts the role of deciding the legality of elections, to include a candidate’s credentials. There is no legal authority that directly allows for the Secretary of State to remove someone from the ballot—if he did so he would be, what I term, an activist Secretary.”
Quoting from the court’s opinion in the case of Linda Jordan vs. Secretary of State Sam Reed dated August 29, 2012: “In the case brought by plaintiff Jordan, she alleges a number of ways in which the Secretary of State has failed his responsibilities and violated the law. The Secretary of State has answered by responding to the allegations and by contending that this court, or any state court for that matter, lacks subject matter jurisdiction to determine the eligibility of a candidate for president of the United States, and by contending that plaintiff has failed to join an indispensable party, President Obama, in this lawsuit.”
In the first quote you say that the state courts have the role of deciding a candidate’s credentials. The second quote says the Secretary of State contends that no state court has subject matter jurisdiction to determine the eligibility of a candidate for president. How can both statements be true? They come from the same office.
Is it any wonder that citizens feel they have been getting the run-around at every corner? One bureaucrat well-versed in legalese passes the plaintiff off to another bureaucrat well-versed in legalese. The buck stops nowhere. Is it any surprise that aware citizens conclude that they have no recourse? Is it any surprise that citizens are now deciding that it is government operatives who must now be given no recourse?
Secretary of State Sam Reed is a well-respected Republican. So are most of the members of the COP. We would not expect duplicity on this issue coming from a member of the Republican Party.
Secretary of State Reed can still, in his election oversight capacity, de-certify candidate Obama. He should do so if for no other reason than the fact that Barack Obama, according to his avowed parentage, is not a natural born citizen as defined by those who ratified this requirement in the Constitution. If his father was not a U. S. citizen at the time of candidate Obama’s birth, then candidate Obama’s parents were not both U. S. citizens, and candidate Obama is therefore not a natural born citizen of the U. S. Then, providing candidate Obama was not born prior to the adoption of the Constitution, candidate Obama is not constitutionally eligible to hold the office of President of the United States. Any court that says otherwise is in violation of the Constitution. Nowhere was this fact given attention in court cases relevant to Barack Obama’s candidacy.
If Secretary of State Reed will de-certify Barack Obama’s eligibility pending discovery of any evidence countering Mr. Obama’s ineligibility for office, Secretary of State Reed will become a hero to all who cherish the Constitution. If Secretary of State Reed fails to de-certify Mr. Obama’s eligibility, then the obviousness of the lack of recourse of the citizenry in defending the Constitution will be overwhelming. In this case I am afraid that Secretary of State Reed will be held as a bad example when the issue reaches prominence.
Please do not claim that declaring Barack Obama ineligible after the election has taken place is not within the Secretary of State’s purview. We all know the truth to be otherwise. As you said, “the framers of the state constitution…gave…the Secretary of State the role of overseeing elections.” That oversight does not stop on the day of the election.
Respectfully, on behalf of the Executive Board of the Constitutional Oversight Posse,
Edward B. Stoneham, Ph. D.
Progress Report 4/13/2013:
Following is a letter sent by Ed Stoneham, President of the COP (Constitutional Oversight Posse), to California Attorney General Kamala Harris, after receiving no response from previous correspondence to CA. Secretary of State Debra Bowen:
March 30, 2013
Kamala D. Harris
Attorney General of the State of California
Attorney General’s Office
California Department of Justice
Attn: Public Inquiry Unit
P. O. Box 944255
Sacramento, CA. 94244-2550
Honorable Attorney General Harris:
We of the Constitutional Oversight Posse regret having to add to your burdens as a public servant, but we must petition you, the officer of next resort, to use the authority vested in your office to correct a blatant violation of the oath of office and to restore discipline to an important segment of our state government. We petition you to carry out appropriate legal action against California Secretary of State Debra Bowen for neglecting, despite repeated urgings by citizens’ groups, to adequately investigate the apparent ineligibility of candidate Barack H. Obama to run for the office of President of the United States on the California ballot.
We, like others before us, petitioned Secretary Bowen with a request that she perform previously neglected duties of her office by conducting a hearing regarding the apparent ineligibility under the Constitution of the United States of candidate Barack H. Obama for the office of President of the United States. Secretary Bowen failed to respond. Her negligence and violations have resulted in damages to the nation on the order of trillions of dollars and to California on the order of hundreds of billions of dollars. It is your duty to bring her to account.
As required by Artide 20 Section 3 of the state constitution, Secretary Bowen, like yourself, swore to the following oath:
"I, ______________, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which I am about to enter.
"And I do further swear (or affirm) that I do not advocate, nor am I a member of any party or organization, political or otherwise, that now advocates the overthrow of the Government of the United States or of the State of California by force or violence or other unlawful means; that within the five years immediately preceding the taking of this oath (or affirmation) I have not been a member of any party or organization, political or otherwise, that advocated the overthrow of the Government of the United States or of the State of California by force or violence or other unlawful means except as follows: ________________________________________________________________
(If no affiliations, write in the words "No Exceptions")
and that during such time as I hold the office of ________________ of the State of California I will not advocate nor become a member of any party or organization, political or otherwise, that advocates the overthrow of the Government of the United States or of the State of California by force or violence or other unlawful means."
Enclosed with this letter are copies of two letters that we of the COP (Constitutional Oversight Posse) sent to California Secretary of State Bowen. The letters were received by the Secretary’s office, as evidenced by return receipts in our possession. The Secretary’s Office took no action in response. It is our understanding that a similar indication of negligence resulted from a letter sent by Attorney Larry Klayman, founder of Judicial Watch, in his earlier attempt to inform Secretary Bowen of a potential breach in the certification of candidates for federal office on the state ballot. There are likely to be numerous other instances providing evidence of Secretary Bowen’s willful negligence and lack of performance of her constitutionally-prescribed duties.
It is now incumbent upon you to initiate prosecution. You are the officer of next resort. Your diligent effort in this case will be most welcome and will be appreciated by all who depend on our elected representatives to carry out the duties of their oaths and to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against potential usurpers.
In the interest of clarity and full disclosure we must reiterate some points of which you are probably already aware. Failure of a state attorney general to prosecute a potential constitutional crime of significant magnitude after adequate evidence of such crime has been disclosed necessarily makes the attorney general an accessory to the crime. A government officer sworn to support and defend the Constitution of the United States who becomes an accessory to another officer’s violation of the oath of office is subject to similar prosecution for negligence and violation of the oath of office. It is both a prerogative and a requirement of your office that you, as Attorney General, bring appropriate charges against Secretary Bowen and do so within a reasonable period of time. As a guideline, due diligence on the part of the Attorney General in a case such as this one may be demonstrated by the public filing of charges against the errant Secretary of State and the initiation of prosecution within four weeks of receipt of the petition.
We apologize for the apparent harshness of our letter. Please understand that it is our intent to be very clear in our communications in order to give you the information that you need to do what is right under the constitutions of the state and of the nation and to do so in a manner that will be perceived by the citizens as duly diligent. In return, we ask you to inform us, at the address given below or through the email contact information at our web site (http://www.constitutionaloversightposse.org), in a timely manner of any actions taken by your office in carrying out the duties described in this letter. This information will help us to avoid taking unnecessary or premature steps toward rectification at the next level. We wish you the greatest success in carrying out the duties of your office and in gaining the respect of the citizens who hold the Constitution of the United States to be the primary entity of our government.
Respectfully,
Edward B. Stoneham, Ph. D.
President of the Board
Constitutional Oversight Posse
