An interview I listened to yesterday on NPR’s All Things Considered with the proponent of a ballot initiative in California worried me a bit.

Real-estate developer Ted Hilton is pushing a measure that requires mothers giving birth to present a government-issued photo id and give a thumb print that will be checked against a Homeland Security Department database to make sure they are in the country legally before a birth certificate is issued.

Hilton contends that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution gives Congress and the courts the right to decide who is a citizen.

He told NPR’s Madeleine Brand that “There’s never been a Supreme Court or a Congress or a president who has ever, in fact, ruled or stated that” all those born in the U.S. are, in fact, automatically U.S. citizens.”

The initiative would also deny family aid for children born in the U.S. if their parent is an undocumented alien.

Wow. I can imagine the back up for fingerprinting women in labor across the U.S. I wouldn’t want that job.

Wonder if this will set up a way to challenge the citizenship of subversive elements? No citizenship for gays? Sounds like a slippery slope to  me.