Arnold Schwarzenegger

Washington, Feb. 23 (Reuters): California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger expressed support yesterday for allowing foreign-born citizens to run for President.

Schwarzenegger, a native of Austria, said in a television interview he would support rescinding the constitutional rule that only US citizens born in the US can become President. “There’s many, many, many people here that have worked within a government and have done an extraordinary job and not have been born in America,” Schwarzenegger said in an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press.” The former bodybuilder and Hollywood star said he has given no thought to running for US President because he was too busy grappling with California’s fiscal problems. “I haven’t thought about that at all,” Schwarzenegger said in response to a question from NBC’s Tim Russert.

Schwarzenegger, a Republican, swept into the governor’s mansion last year in a recall vote that tossed out Democratic incumbent Gray Davis.

He is promoting a financial plan that he says would rescue California from its massive deficits, which includes the sale of $15 billion in bonds and deep spending cuts. It was the first time Schwarzenegger has commented about a proposal put forth by Senator Orrin Hatch, a Republican from Utah. Hatch’s bill would make foreign-born Americans eligible for the presidency if they have been a US citizen for 20 years. Schwarzenegger has been a US citizen for about 21 years.

As a constitutional amendment, the rule change would require approval by two-thirds of both chambers of Congress and ratification by the legislatures of three-quarters of the states — a process that would take years.

The governor cited former US secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and Madeleine Albright as examples of foreign-born Americans who served high public office.