Rep. Nancy Mace planned to introduce a joint resolution on Wednesday that would push a constitutional amendment requiring members of Congress, federal judges and other Senate-confirmed appointees to be natural-born citizens.
The South Carolina Republican said the measure is meant to close what she calls a loophole in the Constitution. If adopted, it would reach more than a dozen naturalized citizens now serving in Congress, even as the Constitution already bars anyone who is not a natural-born citizen from becoming president or vice president.
Mace, who is running to be South Carolina's next governor, framed the proposal as a matter of loyalty and civic trust. “If you hold power in the American government, you should be a natural-born American citizen,” she said. She added, “For too long we have allowed foreign-born members to hold seats in this government, while making clear their loyalty is not here. We see it every day.”
She singled out Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., who was born in Somalia and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2000. “Ilhan Omar is just one of many foreign-born members of this government who have made clear, time and again, their loyalty is not here,” Mace said. Omar’s case is among the most prominent examples likely to be swept up in the political fight over the proposal.
The timing matters because Mace is launching the push while also campaigning for governor, putting a national message on citizenship and allegiance in front of a party audience that has often treated immigration and identity as political tests. Her language places the issue squarely in the culture-war lane, but the text she is proposing would have real constitutional consequences for lawmakers already serving in Congress.
Changing the Constitution is a steep climb. Mace’s proposal would need a two-thirds vote in both chambers of Congress and then ratification by three-fourths of the states. A second route exists through a constitutional convention called by two-thirds of state legislatures, but that method has never been used successfully to add an amendment.
That gap between the rhetoric and the math is the real obstacle. The proposal can be introduced on Wednesday and can draw attention immediately, but it cannot take effect unless the same Congress and a large share of state legislatures agree to rewrite the country’s basic rules. For now, Mace has made her case in blunt terms: “The American people deserve leaders who put America first.” She said the measure “closes a gap in our Constitution long overdue for closing.”
