Supreme Court rejects Obama citizenship case

The U.S. Supreme Court today declined to take up a case challenging President-elect Barack Obama's citizenship.

The case, Donofrio v. Wells, was filed by Leo C. Donofrio against New Jersey Secretary of State Nina Mitchell Wells and heard by the Supreme Court of New Jersey.

The court today rejected the appeal without comment and without apparent dissent.

"The case had little chance at the high court, but became the subject of a tremendous amount of speculation and debate on ideological political blogs," the Washington Post reported.

"This is the kind of doubt-bending thing that lives independently online, but from the looks of today's decision by the highest court in the land, the accusation isn't gaining much ground in the realm of reality," New York Times reporter Kate Phillips wrote today.

On Monday, November 3, an application (08A407) for a "stay pending the filing and disposition of a petition for a writ of certiorari" was submitted to Justice David Souter, who denied the request on November 6.

A week after Souter's rejection of the case, the application was refiled and submitted to Justice Clarence Thomas, who distributed it to his colleagues, and the issue was scheduled for conference on Friday, December 5.

The Obama campaign argues that Barack Obama is a naturally born U.S. citizen, born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961 and his birth certificate has been validated by officials in that state.

The Electoral College is scheduled to meet on Dec. 15 to certify Obama as the next president of the United States.

Ironically, the case reached the court by way of Justice Thomas, the only African-American member of the Supreme Court, who participated in the controversial Bush v. Gore case in 2000 without asking a single question during oral arguments.