Do you really believe that both of them will be on the ballot?
Posted on 08/26/2013 1:51:55 PM PDT by SoConPubbie
This article appeared on Daily Caller on August 26, 2013.
As we head into a potential government shutdown over the funding of Obamacare, the iconoclastic junior senator from Texas — love him or hate him — continues to stride across the national stage. With his presidential aspirations as big as everything in his home state, by now many know what has never been a secret: Ted Cruz was born in Canada.
(Full disclosure: I’m Canadian myself, with a green card. Also, Cruz has been a friend since his days representing Texas before the Supreme Court.)
But does that mean that Cruz’s presidential ambitions are gummed up with maple syrup or stuck in snowdrifts altogether different from those plaguing the Iowa caucuses? Are the birthers now hoist on their own petards, having been unable to find any proof that President Obama was born outside the United States but forcing their comrade-in-boots to disqualify himself by releasing his Alberta birth certificate?
No, actually, and it’s not even that complicated; you just have to look up the right law. It boils down to whether Cruz is a “natural born citizen” of the United States, the only class of people constitutionally eligible for the presidency. (The Founding Fathers didn’t want their newly independent nation to be taken over by foreigners on the sly.)
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.
So the one remaining question is whether Ted Cruz was a citizen at birth. That’s an easy one. The Nationality Act of 1940 outlines which children become “nationals and citizens of the United States at birth.” In addition to those who are born in the United States or born outside the country to parents who were both citizens — or, interestingly, found in the United States without parents and no proof of birth elsewhere — citizenship goes to babies born to one American parent who has spent a certain number of years here.
That single-parent requirement has been amended several times, but under the law in effect between 1952 and 1986 — Cruz was born in 1970 — someone must have a citizen parent who resided in the United States for at least 10 years, including five after the age of 14, in order to be considered a natural-born citizen. Cruz’s mother, Eleanor Darragh, was born in Delaware, lived most of her life in the United States, and gave birth to little Rafael Edward Cruz in her 30s. Q.E.D.
So why all the brouhaha about where Obama was born, given that there’s no dispute that his mother, Ann Dunham, was a citizen? Because his mother was 18 when she gave birth to the future president in 1961 and so couldn’t have met the 5-year-post-age-14 residency requirement. Had Obama been born a year later, it wouldn’t have mattered whether that birth took place in Hawaii, Kenya, Indonesia, or anywhere else. (For those born since 1986, by the way, the single citizen parent must have only resided here for five years, at least two of which must be after the age of 14.)
In short, it may be politically advantageous for Ted Cruz to renounce his Canadian citizenship before making a run at the White House, but his eligibility for that office shouldn’t be in doubt. As Tribe and Olson said about McCain — and could’ve said about Obama, or the Mexico-born George Romney, or the Arizona-territory-born Barry Goldwater — Cruz “is certainly not the hypothetical ‘foreigner’ who John Jay and George Washington were concerned might usurp the role of Commander in Chief.”
Your statement that all is required is that a person be born a citizen, is patently incorrect.
Sorry about that.
Scab pickers.
I'll go with the Constitution and the Law, not some mumbo-jumbo commentary.
/johnny
The vote you referenced was regarding the eligibility of a candidate for a congressional seat.
Revealing the you would equate a founding father with Satan.
Then let me give you something to change your opinion, at least as far as being "disturbed about citizenship" goes.
Ted Cruz is Constitutionally eligible to be President - according to the top authorities of the early United States who knew exactly what the Founding Fathers meant by "natural born citizen."
"It is not necessary that a man should be born in this country, to be 'a natural born citizen.' It is only requisite that he should be a citizen by birth, and that is the case with all the children of citizens who have ever resided in this country, though born in a foreign country."
- James Bayard, A Brief Exposition of the Constitution of the United States (1833)
The above quote was part of Bayard's discussion of the qualifications to be President, and Presidential eligibility.
Bayard's exposition of the Constitution was read and approved by the Great Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Marshall, by the legendary Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, and by the famous Chancellor James Kent, as well as other legal experts of the early United States.
Bayard himself was the grandson of Richard Bassett, United States Senator #1 and one of the 39 Delegates who Signed the Constitution.
And Bayard's FATHER (who is also credited with brokering the deal that made Thomas Jefferson our 3rd President)was known to his peers in Congress as "HIGH PRIEST OF THE CONSTITUTION."
Not one single person ever said that James Bayard was wrong about his understanding of what "natural born citizen" meant.
I agree.
My point is that those believing there is no difference should use the constitutional procedure to resolve it.
Until then, neither Cruz nor Soetoro/Obama are qualified.
Ted Cruz is going by the law, as his research and study has shown him what that is. His conclusion is that by law natural born means born a citizen, instead of one that has to go through naturalization like his father did in order to become a citizen.
If he believes that, and has scholarly backing for it, he would not insist upon some mythical “higher standard” of the meaning of natural born citizen.
Nobody could EVER enforce a standard that supposedly RISES ABOVE what he has found when studying the law.
Everyone becomes a law unto himself when that happens. Some say, oh, his father is CUban so that makes Ted Cuban. Others say he was born in Canada so that means he is Canadian but they will also agree he is American but just not naturally born because it was across the border in Canada.
Others will say he is Canadian only and was never an American of any kind, even though that can’t possibly be true according to the law.
Most of the confused and demanding and unsatisfiable souls IGNORE his mother who gave him birth. That she meets every definition of an American citizen, herself. And they ignore the law in existence when Ted was born that made her unquestioned citizenship the controlling factor in his natural born status.
Windflier, I believe your heart is in the right place but these people can’t be mollified and they are all over the map.
I believe Ted Cruz himself and any supporting scholarly types and published works are the best sources, along with checking the documentation they cite.
After checking their beliefs and claims, you either accept that or you reject that.
If you try to reach a different, so-called “better” standard based on what various and sundry FReepers are trying to force, you can never attain it.
It is a MIRAGE.
As for brown deer, he/she/it should be ashamed for coming here and declaring Ted’s father Rafael to be suspect in his love for America and Freedom, simply because he fought Cuba’s dictator Bautista while Castro was fighting him but before people understood Castro’s Communism.
And then, brown deer tries to SMEAR Ted Cruz with THAT.
Johnny, I've looked at the Constitution and the laws, as well as most of the Framers' writings on this matter, and I believe they intended for that office to be restricted to people whose loyalty to America was ensured by their ties to the blood and the land of this country.
I know that other decent Americans see it otherwise, but I don't call them idiots for seeing it that way. I just think they're willing to accept a lower standard for that office than I am.
Thanks for your comment, Lake.
Sorry, Ranger. I typed too fast.
No, it isn’t. See post 106.
Birthers come up with some stupid damn THEORY that sounds good, and then proof-text it from history, all the while suppressing the best historical evidence as best they can.
Sane people don’t start with some theory. Sane people go and look at what history actuallY SAYS.
That doesn’t apply any more. Women confer citizenship upon their offspring just as men do.
I apologize for sending you such a short answer.
I really don’t have time to get into a long discussion right now, and this is why I’ve bowed out of this thread.
But... I owe you more than just saying your statement was wrong.
The Founders were quite concerned that any future (after their generation) President should be loyal to USA. The way they had to do this was to set constitutional qualifications for the job. Two of these, age and residency, we needn’t discuss here (Other than to note that they do exist, and by themselves they invalidate your statement that only citizenship at birth is required).
The third constitutional qualification is something called “natural born citizenship” .. this differed then, and differs now, from simple American “citizenship.”
Please see any good treatise on American constitutional or political history, or review the Supreme Court cases I posted earlier in this thread... to see that indeed, NBC status is different than mere citizenship.
Beyond that, about all I have time to say...is to restate my initial intention ... which was to point out that we would run a POLITICAL risk if we were to nominate the good Senator. Namely, that the “main stream media” would (as they are already showing signs of doing) “discover” this constitutional issue or problem. That the media would do this despite their ignoring it almost assiduously for the past several years, is, to me anyway, very likely.
Add in the fact that we KNOW the Senator fails the usual NBC criteria on two grounds (Daddy’s citizenship at Son’s birth......and place of birth), whereas we only know that the MSM’s favorite politician fails the criteria on one ground (Daddy’s citizenship, with his place of birth in dispute).
No, I do really really like or respect what I see with the Senator. I am neither against him politically nor a “birther idiot (at least, I don’t consider myself such).
All I am saying is that we would run a clear risk in nominating him for this particular position. And I think (matter of opinion, I have no inside info) that the MSM would just love us to do it.
I wish, hope I were, am wrong.
And with that, I really do have a ton of work here that has to get done, so I respectfully regret I have to sign off this discussion thread for awhile. All my best and thanks so very much for understanding that I really must get some work done in the next few days
Best regards,
I don’t believe he’s eligible, not because of some esoteric arguement rooted in common law, but because the courts have not given a definative answer on this issue. IOW, it’s not settled law.
It is very likely to become settled law only after HRH Clinton sues to have the election results overturned.
I don’t trust the courts to decide anything in favor of the American people, and I see no reason why we would intentionally expose ourselves to that risk. Cruz is not the only patriot available.
This is not an arguement for “birtherism”, it’s a prediction.
I don’t believe he’s eligible, not because of some esoteric arguement rooted in common law, but because the courts have not given a definative answer on this issue. IOW, it’s not settled law.
It is very likely to become settled law only after HRH Clinton sues to have the election results overturned.
I don’t trust the courts to decide anything in favor of the American people, and I see no reason why we would intentionally expose ourselves to that risk. Cruz is not the only patriot available.
This is not an arguement for “birtherism”, it’s a prediction.
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Ted's father, Rafael Bienvenido Cruz fought alongside Fidel Castro's forces to overthrow Cuba's U.S.-backed dictator, Fulgencio Batista.
See link at # 28.
Thanks, Brown Deer.
I haven't worked with boolean algebra for quite awhile. But I believe that the relevant wording in both Bingham excerpts that I posted is the equivalent of saying that if one or both parents is not a citizen then the person in question cannot be a nbc, corrections welcome.
/johnny
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