[gorush]

"Because the constitution means what it says and says what it means..."

You can't make this stuff up.

[Idaho_Cowboy]

That's would first for Lawrence Tribe. interestingly he's changed his views on the matter now that it is politically expedient.

From the Cato Institute:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3060736/posts "What's a "natural born citizen"? The Constitution doesn't say, but the Framers' understanding, combined with statutes enacted by the First Congress, indicate that the phrase means both birth abroad to American parents - in a manner regulated by federal law - and birth within the nation's territory regardless of parental citizenship. The Supreme Court has confirmed that definition on multiple occasions in various contexts.

There's no ideological debate here: Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe and former solicitor general Ted Olson - who were on opposite sides in Bush v. Gore among other cases - co-authored a memorandum in March 2008 detailing the above legal explanation in the context of John McCain's eligibility. Recall that McCain - lately one of Cruz's chief antagonists - was born to U.S. citizen parents serving on a military base in the Panama Canal Zone.

In other words, anyone who is a citizen at birth - as opposed to someone who becomes a citizen later ("naturalizes") or who isn't a citizen at all - can be president."