Posted on 03/28/2015 4:05:00 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s announcement Monday that he will run for president has Donald Trump, the ladies on “The View,” and others in the birther crowd questioning Cruz’s eligibility to be president.
Born in Alberta, Canada in 1970, Cruz is the son of an American mother and Cuban father. Anticipating these questions, Cruz released his birth certificate in 2013 and officially renounced his dual Canadian citizenship in 2014.
This isn’t the first time a candidate’s eligibility has been questioned—the issue dogged President Obama in 2008, George Romney in 1967, and President Chester Arthur in 1880. But is there any merit in the case against Ted Cruz?
The United States Constitution lays out three qualifications to be president: he or she must be 35 years old, a resident of the United States for 14 years and a natural-born citizen. The Constitution does not define “natural born citizen,” but many clues exist that help determine its meaning.
As former Solicitor Generals Neal Katyal and Paul Clement discuss in an article for the Harvard Law Review Forum, John Jay (who later become the first chief justice) advised George Washington:
Whether it would not be wise & seasonable to provide a … strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government; and to declare expressly that the Command in chief of the american [sic] army shall not be given to, nor devolve on, any but a natural born Citizen.
Justice Joseph Story wrote in his “Commentaries on the Constitution” that the natural-born citizen requirement “cuts off all chances for ambitious foreigners, who might otherwise be intriguing for the office; and interposes a barrier against those corrupt interferences of foreign governments in executive elections.” As law professor Sarah Duggin explains, it “seems evident that the Framers were worried about foreign princes, not children born to American citizens living abroad.”
Thus, the president must be a natural born citizen—and not merely a naturalized citizen. The difference boils down to whether that person was a U.S. citizen from birth.
Under the British doctrine of jus sanguinis, citizenship passes from one or both parents to a child, regardless of the birthplace. The First Congress adopted this principle as law when it enacted the Naturalization Act of 1790, which declared that “the children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond the sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens.” Though the 1790 law was superseded by subsequent naturalization laws as well as the Fourteenth Amendment, the principle of jus sanguinis remains central to understanding who is a natural born citizen.
Further, 8 U.S. Code § 1401(g) extends citizenship to children who are born outside the United States or its territories, provided that one parent is a U.S. citizen who “prior to the birth of such person, was physically present in the United States … for a period or periods totaling not less than five years.” By comparison, a naturalized citizen is a person, born in a foreign country to parents who are not U.S. citizens, who seeks to become an American citizen.
Attempting to end this debate, in 2008, the Senate unanimously passed a resolution stating that John McCain, who was born on a U.S. military base in the Panama Canal Zone, was a natural-born citizen and eligible to become president. The resolution explained there was “no evidence of the intention of the Framers or any Congress to limit the constitutional rights of children born to Americans serving in the military” and that previous presidential candidates (such as Barry Goldwater, born in Arizona before it received statehood and George Romney, born to U.S. citizen parents in Mexico) were “understood to be eligible to be president.”
Based on the original meaning of the citizenship requirement and current law, Ted Cruz is a natural-born citizen. As Katyal and Clement conclude, “[A]n individual born to a U.S. citizen parent—whether in California or Canada or the Canal Zone—is a U.S. citizen from birth and is fully eligible to serve as president if the people so choose.”
Whether or not Ted Cruz is your candidate of choice, there is no legitimate question about his constitutional eligibility to run for president.
Coughing into hand: Bullshit!
LOL! The best to you and yours as well. :-)
The basic rule of common law was was jus soli, not jus sanguinis. Jus sanguinis, much as in the later US, was gradually incorporated by statute.
Don’t care what Congress does, it cannot change by law the meaning of the term natural born citizen in the Constitution.
Though it was arguably changed by the 14th Amendment.
The first Congress passed the Naturalization Act of 1790 which exempted from needing naturalization “the children of citizens of the United States that may be born beyond Sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born Citizens”.
So if having an exception was good enough for the Founders and Framers who were in the first Congress in 1790, its good enough for me.
It depends on your definition of “dogged.” Obama was sued 28 times in state or federal courts over ineligibility.
Sorry, Congress does not have the power to change the ,meaning of the Constitution by passing a law.
It is, in fact, interesting that they felt these children needed a law to define their status, which strongly implies that it wasn’t defined in the Constitution itself.
It wasn’t until 1874 that the Supreme Court ruled that the term “natural born citizen” was not defined in the Constitution.
“The Constitution does not say, in words, who shall be natural born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to determine that.”—Minor v Happersett
The fifth section of the 14th Amendment, adopted in 1868 gave Congress the power to define citizenship.
Section 5. “The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.”
I just realized that I do not have any good “When I was young I...” stories.
I was spectacularly well behaved.
And possibly boring.
:-\
They’re not very portable and by this account, he totes his pocket pup everywhere.
;]
Jesus Christ: You can’t impeach Him and He ain’t gonna resign.
Find something else to post. Yes he can run.
Boring might have saved my backside a few times. LOL
I was in the 4th grade when I stole a box of chalk from school. I wrote 4 letter words on the road all the way home. I lived about a mile from school, so I used up all the chalk.
I stopped right in front of my house. The principal, Mr. Rasmondson , apparently followed the writings to my house and fired to the rest. I was sent to his office the next day, confessed and received 3 swats on the butt. He used a big wooden paddle with holes drilled in it. My dad spanked me with a willow branch that evening.
I never stole another thing for the rest of my life. ;>)
fired to the rest. = figured out the rest.
You did not think that one through, did you?
:D
I wasn’t very smart. LOL
Agreed that the Constitution does not specifically define the term. The “elsewhere” the court mentions refers, IMO, to other sources of the time.
I don’t think 14A gives Congress the right to define citizenship, much less NBC. Enforcing a law is quite different from redefining its meaning.
Last time I checked, survivors aren't buried.
Jesus Christ: You can’t impeach Him and He ain’t gonna resign.
The best laid plans of gators and men...
;D
;>)
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