So what is the deal with his birth? Wasn’t he born in Canada? And saying that Obama is ineligible, etc is an absolute non-starter. I simply don’t buy it and, even if true, it has nothing to do with Cruz’s eligibility. I hope he is eligible but I was unaware of this issue til recently. Guess I need to do some research.
I don’t see how Cruz can run since he was born in Canada. In fact, I wasn’t sure about McCain, though he was born on U.S. territory in the Canal Zone.
RE: So what is the deal with his birth? Wasn’t he born in Canada? And saying that Obama is ineligible, etc is an absolute non-starter.
From Breitbart’s legal columnist Ken Klukowski :
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/03/11/Yes-Ted-Cruz-Likely-Eligible-to-be-President
No one is certain what that means. Citizenship was primarily defined by each state when the Constitution was adopted. Federal citizenship wasn’t clearly established until the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868. The Constitution is not clear whether it means you must be born on U.S. soil, or instead whether you must be born a U.S. citizen.
Cruz was born in Canada, but his mother was a lifelong American, born in Delaware. (His father was a political refugee from Cuba.) So under federal law, Cruz was born an American citizen by virtue of his mother. His family moved back to Texas, where Cruz grew up, and lived his entire life except the years he spent in New Jersey attending Princeton, Massachusetts attending Harvard Law School, and Washington, D.C., clerking for Chief Justice William Rehnquist at the Supreme Court and later serving in the Bush administration.
So this former Texas solicitor general was born an American citizen and has spent almost all his life in America—usually serving his state or nation.
It would be better to report, “Some constitutional experts say he would be ineligible,” or more accurate still, “A small minority of constitutional experts say he would be ineligible.” But no one can make the unqualified claim that the Constitution declares Ted Cruz is unable to run for president.
There’s never been a court case to decide this issue, and there are only a few law review articles written by professors. The only professor I know of who thinks Cruz in ineligible to run for president also said John McCain was ineligible to run for president because he was born on a U.S. Navy base in Panama. I don’t recall any media outlet reporting John McCain was ineligible to be president.
The most likely meaning of the national-born clause is that you must have been an American citizen at birth, so that you would not have greater loyalty to some foreign nation. Cruz was born an American citizen, and has spent most of his life serving this nation with unabashed patriotism.
If Cruz runs for the White House, then one of his opponents in the primary would have standing to sue in federal court to argue Cruz is ineligible. But the smart money would be on a court agreeing that Cruz is as eligible as anyone else who was born an American citizen.
The deal with Cruz is that he was born in Canada of an Cuban father, who might or might not have been friends of Castro, and a USA citizen mother. I am not one who sees Cruz as a USA ‘natural born citizen’ much to my regrets. If a Canadian birth is O.K. then I have to accept with all reluctance that the two sons of the Muslim Egyptian ex President Morsi are also eligible because they were actually born in the USA. I believe the Founding Fathers were very concerned with loyalties, and especially of such as a co-joined religious and government as Islam. If the USA today must depend upon one person for POTUSA as to ability/qualifications we certainly will have a struggle to get back to our Constitutional roots.