Kansas secretary of state candidate Kris Kobach says President Barack Obama would resolve questions about his citizenship by producing a detailed birth certificate.
A Kobach spokesman said Friday the Piper Republican fielded questions about the issue regularly. Kobach’s latest remarks were made Thursday in response to a query at an appearance at an Overland Park retirement community.
The White House declined to comment on the issue Friday but has long dismissed allegations that Obama was born outside the U.S. and is therefore ineligible to be president.
Hawaii officials have repeatedly confirmed Obama’s birth in their state. Last year a federal judge threw out a lawsuit on the issue, saying it was a waste of the court’s time.
But Kobach said Obama could end the controversy by producing a “long-form” birth certificate. Obama’s presidential campaign posted a certificate from Hawaii on its website listing his name, his parents’ names, and the date and place of his birth.
“It doesn’t have a doctor’s signature on it,” Kobach said in Overland Park. “Look, until a court says otherwise, I’m willing to accept that he’s a natural U.S. citizen. But I think it is a fair question: Why not just produce the long-form birth certificate?”
Kobach faces two opponents in the Aug. 3 primary.
Kobach spokesman Ben Davis denied that Kobach was a “birther,” as those who doubt Obama’s U.S. citizenship are commonly called. But Davis said Kobach got questions about it at almost every event.
“It’s not just a small segment of the public,” Davis said.
Kobach helped write Arizona’s immigration law, which directs law enforcement to check the legal status of people they stop for other reasons. He also has served as a legal consultant to city officials and state legislators wanting to crack down on illegal immigration.
Last year the Kansas Democratic Party criticized Kobach after he joked that Obama and God had something in common: Neither has a birth certificate.
Kenny Johnston, the Kansas Democrats’ executive director, said Kobach tried to gloss over the extreme views.
“I’m sure Mr. Kobach’s clients accept that he is a lawyer without him producing the results from his bar exam,” he said.
Tracey Mann, a Salina Republican running for the U.S. House in western and central Kansas, faced criticism over remarks similar to Kobach’s made at two recent appearances.
The first was at a forum in Elkhart, in the state’s southwestern corner. Mann said Obama should show his birth certificate to “resolve it one way or another.”
In a program Tuesday on Salina radio station KSAL, Mann said: “I think the president of the United States needs to come forth with his papers and show everyone that he’s an American citizen and put this issue to bed once and for all.”
Mann’s campaign did not respond to messages Friday from The Associated Press, but his spokesman told the Salina Journal that Mann “misspoke” on the radio and didn’t question Obama’s citizenship.
