January 07, 2011 11:08 PM UTC

Tipton Surprisingly Reasonable on "Birthright Citizenship?"

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• by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: Now there’s a bit of a problem. It didn’t take our astute readers very long, at all, to find this Durango Herald story from August. Wherein Rep. Scott Tipton, well, has a rather amazingly different view of the 14th Amendment than he gave to Chris Matthews on national television!

Tipton would entertain a revision of the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which extends U.S. citizenship to any person born on American soil, even if their parents crossed the border illegally.

No worries, hapless constituent! One of these is how he really feels.

Perhaps he doesn’t want you to know which one it is.

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Newly sworn-in Rep. Scott Tipton appeared yesterday on MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews, responding to questions about the disruption of the reading of the U.S. Constitution by a “birther” in the House gallery. From there, Matthews turned the discussion to the recent push to repeal the 14th Amendment, or at least challenge the modern interpretation of it with respect to the children of illegal immigrants; and after some evasion Tipton was forced to answer.

Fairly reasonably, as it turned out.

Tipton does seem a little shaky at first, falling back on boilerplate “this session is about jobs” talking points–but when Matthews finally corners him on the subject of so-called “birthright citizenship,” Tipton seems to be clear that he does not support stripping any person born in America of their citizenship, calling it a “settled question.”

Judging by Tipton’s reaction to the way Matthews phrased the question, you have to allow for the possibility that Tipton just didn’t connect what Matthews was talking about to the Republican push to repeal “birthright citizenship” underway in a number of state legislatures–an apparently coordinated effort, getting quite a bit of press coverage this week.

Either that, or he meant to jab a stick in the eye of the “Tea Partiers” who elected him?