Tea Party-backed GOP state Rep. Mark Hatfield has introduced a bill stipulating that President Obama must provide his birth certificate in order have his name placed on Georgia’s 2012 ballot.
The bill has the signatures of 94 members of the 180-member House, including that of one Democrat, Glenn Baker of Jonesboro. At minimum, the bill will suggest make for some interesting chatter when the national press comes down for Newt Gingrich’s announcement that he’s exploring a GOP run for president. Similar legislation has been attempted in other states, but Hatfield’s bill is slightly different. It requires certified copies of “the candidate’s first original long-form birth certificate.” Documentation as provided by Hawaii, which has insisted time and time again that Obama was born there, “would not suffice,” Hatfield said.
Hatfield’s bill also makes it a “misdemeanor of a high and aggravated nature” for any member of Georgia’s electoral college to vote for Obama if he has not complied.