The National Federation of Republican Assemblies (NFRA) has stirred controversy by citing the infamous 1857 Dred Scott Supreme Court decision to argue that Vice President Kamala Harris is ineligible to run for president under the U.S. Constitution. The NFRA, during its national convention last October, adopted a platform and policy document that also challenges the eligibility of Republican candidates Vivek Ramaswamy and Nikki Haley to appear on primary ballots, based on their interpretation of the “natural born Citizen” requirement for presidential candidates.
The NFRA’s document asserts that only individuals born on American soil to parents who were both U.S. citizens at the time of the child’s birth meet the constitutional qualifications to run for president. This interpretation, the group claims, aligns with the views of late Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, as well as several historical court cases, including the widely condemned Dred Scott v. Sandford ruling.
The 1857 Dred Scott decision, which declared that enslaved people could not be citizens, is often regarded as one of the worst rulings in U.S. Supreme Court history. The NFRA’s platform argues that candidates like Kamala Harris, whose parents were not U.S. citizens at the time of her birth, do not meet the constitutional standard of “natural born Citizen.”
The document, first highlighted by lawyer Andrew Fleischman on social media platform X (formerly Twitter), has sparked significant backlash, given the Dred Scott ruling’s historical context and its role in exacerbating tensions that led to the U.S. Civil War.
The NFRA’s platform also lists Ohio Senator JD Vance, former President Donald Trump’s running mate, as a preferred candidate for vice president. The group endorsed Trump during their October convention.
In response to the controversy, NFRA President Alex Johnson defended the group’s position, stating that the inclusion of the Dred Scott case in their document does not equate to endorsing the entirety of the decision. Johnson criticized the media’s portrayal of the group’s stance and expressed strong opposition to Kamala Harris’s potential presidency, citing concerns over her political positions.
Legal scholars and historians have pointed out that the NFRA’s strict interpretation of the “natural born Citizen” clause would have disqualified several early U.S. presidents, including George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison, whose parents were born in British colonies before the formation of the United States.
Moreover, the NFRA’s interpretation is contradicted by the 1939 Supreme Court case Perkins v. Elg, which ruled that a child born in the U.S. to foreign parents is indeed a U.S. citizen. Additionally, the Dred Scott decision was effectively overturned by the 13th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution, which abolished slavery and affirmed that all persons born in the United States are citizens.
The NFRA’s stance has sparked debate within the Republican Party and beyond, raising questions about constitutional interpretations and the implications for future presidential candidates.
