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Can Cruz legally be president? Ivy League scholars debate
Virgina Pilot online ^ | 2/5/16 | COLLIN BINKLEY

Posted on 02/06/2016 1:47:14 AM PST by RC one

Edited on 02/06/2016 5:34:58 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]

BOSTON (AP) — Two legal scholars squared off in a public debate on Friday to settle whether Republican Ted Cruz is eligible to become president. Spoiler alert: They didn't settle it.

But the debate at Harvard Law School underscored that conflicting interpretations of the U.S. Constitution can produce different answers. The question has been in the national spotlight since Republican rival Donald Trump suggested that Cruz, who was born in Canada to an American mother, isn't legally qualified to be president.


(Excerpt) Read more at pilotonline.com ...


TOPICS: Society
KEYWORDS: 2016electionbias; academicbias; birtherism; birthers; blamecanada; canadian; cruz; doublestandard; naturalborncitizen; naughtyteacherslist; obamawasntvetted; repositorycruz
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To: John Valentine
-- And, if the phony 'dual citizenship' standard were adopted, so would Donald Trump, since he is eligible for British citizenship merely asserting his right to it. --

Your claim is that Trump is simulataneously NOT a dual citizen, and IS a dual citizen.

At least you appear to have abandoned your previous contnetion, that Trump IS a dual citizen.

41 posted on 02/06/2016 2:50:31 AM PST by Cboldt
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To: RC one

The only ‘scholars’ whose opinions count are the ones by whom the definitive answer would be given in the ultimate extreme - the USSC to be specific.

And yes, when I use the term ‘scholars’ in connection with the USSC it is a stretch, but as one might say “there you have it.”


42 posted on 02/06/2016 2:51:06 AM PST by Gaffer
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To: octex

That’s a wishful interpretation. There are prescribed steps that must be gone thru in order to get the case to the SCOTUS
Sort of legal ping pong. It’s right ! It’s wrong ... It’s right etc until it is in front of them.
No one has the authority to make the decision except the SC
Sit back and enjoy the kabuki !
Expect Dr Carson to join as a plaintiff. The dirty trick in IOWA has given him grounds for damages

Ask yourself : Does Ted Cruz love the constitution and country enough to be part of a kabuki to take down not just the progressives but O? (If O was not born in US as some have said, their situations would be identicle !)

Then remember which candidate kept asking for Os BC and other documents. Even offering to pay him $5 million.


43 posted on 02/06/2016 2:53:14 AM PST by hoosiermama (Make America Great Again by uniting Great Americans!)
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To: greatvikingone

There has never been a foreign born President in our entire history. Now you know why.


44 posted on 02/06/2016 2:55:32 AM PST by RC one ("...all persons born in the allegiance of the United States are natural-born citizens" US v. WKA)
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To: Cboldt

Thanks.
All the more reason for Carson to step in himself ! Kabuki?


45 posted on 02/06/2016 2:58:30 AM PST by hoosiermama (Make America Great Again by uniting Great Americans!)
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To: Windflier
It is widely accepted that the constitution is written in the language of the English Common law and the English Common law is clear as to what a Natural Born Citizen is and isn't.

All persons born in the allegiance of the king are natural-born subjects, and all persons born in the allegiance of the United States are natural-born citizens. Birth and allegiance go together. Such is the rule of the common law, and it is the common law of this country, as well as of England.

Justice Swayne, United States v. Rhodes, 1 Abbott, US 28 (Cir. Ct. Ky 1866)

46 posted on 02/06/2016 3:00:25 AM PST by RC one ("...all persons born in the allegiance of the United States are natural-born citizens" US v. WKA)
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To: grania
The argument for Cruz stated that laws since the Constitution have changed what is written in the Constitution.

That is an incorrect, misleading and grossly oversimplified position. For example, that has never been my position. MY position has always been to rely on Vattel. Vattel NEVER insisted on Jus Soli. He uses jus soli as an indicia, true; but it is not the essential indicia for Vattel; jus sanguinis is. It is entirely within the sovereign power of the United States Congress to define the indicia it will use to determine - not grant - citizenship at birth, aka natural born citizenship. This power is precisely parallel to the power of legislatures to determine by statute the criteria by which the residency status of citizens shall be determined. And that determination does NOT serve to change the definition of 'resident' as used in the Constitution. The state of Connecticut, for example, is not forever bound to use their 1786 residence criteria just because those were the criteria in effect at the time of the ratification.

47 posted on 02/06/2016 3:09:10 AM PST by John Valentine (Deep in the Heart of Texas)
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To: RC one

Were any parents of past presidents registered voters of another country at the time of their birth?

I think that particular bit of information is being overlooked....or swept under the rug.


48 posted on 02/06/2016 3:10:11 AM PST by Daniel Ramsey (You don't have to like Trump, his enemies certainly don't.)
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To: RC one

nat·u·ral�‹ˆnaCH(É™)rÉ™l/

adjective

1. existing in or caused by nature; not made or caused by humankind.


I don’t know why many of you find this to be so difficult a concept to understand.

No law is required. No statute is required. No rule is required. No regulation is required. Citizenship is determined by an act of natural consequence.

A child born of 2 citizen parents, in his country (or jurisdiction of his country) is a natural born citizen. It’s so obvious and simple to understand. Sheesh....


49 posted on 02/06/2016 3:10:35 AM PST by nesnah (Liberals - the petulant children of politics)
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To: JediJones
I really don't follow your logic. Nothing in the Constitution allows for someone on foreign soil to be US President. No amendments have passed. The argument from those who support that Cruz is nbc seems to he "times have changed". How does that relate to free speech? You're saying that TV, radio etc are speech that didn't exist back then. So you're saying foreign-born pols didn't exist back then? HUH???

The was I see it is that it isn't a resolved issue. The puppetmasters whom as we've seen the past few years control the courts (that's personally why I feel we'll never get the nation back) can pull the plug on Cruz any time they want. Cruz has to keep it in mind. They could get it to free those delegates for someone else, they good do so in the general, or they could have a very appreciative Cruz in the WH.

Wouldn't four years with Trump as President be a better idea, as it's sorted out? The crime is that Cruz and Rubio are in the US Senate and they didn't push for a definitive answer before they ran for President.

50 posted on 02/06/2016 3:16:23 AM PST by grania
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To: RC one
It is widely accepted that the constitution is written in the language of the English Common law and the English Common law is clear as to what a Natural Born Citizen is and isn't.

It may be widely accepted among today's ignorami, but it certainly wasn't at the time of the founding.

"George Mason IV (December 11, 1725 - October 7, 1792) a delegate from Virginia to the U.S. Constitutional Convention, who is called the "Father of the Bill of Rights," had said during the debate on ratification in Virginia that the Constitution was not founded on English common law through a single example on treaties, bluntly stated that English common law was not the common law of the United States."

Link

51 posted on 02/06/2016 3:17:57 AM PST by John Valentine (Deep in the Heart of Texas)
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To: grania

As much as you don’t follow JediJpnes logic, I don’t follow yours. More, I don’t even accept your premises. They are historically inaccurate and contrary to contemporary publications and resources available to the Framers.


52 posted on 02/06/2016 3:20:11 AM PST by John Valentine (Deep in the Heart of Texas)
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To: RC one

It does not work, because the allegiance is divided. The author misconstrued the principle due to an erroneous reading of Blackstone’s Commentaries. Sir Edward Coke in Calvin’s Case 1608 correctly observed any person who was subject-made was naturalized, whereas a subject-born was a subject by birth with two English parents in the jurisdiction of England. However, due to the unique English policy of claiming as a subject any person born in England as a subject of the sovereign of England, commentators adopted the habit of referring to any person born in England, regardless of alien parentage, to be a natural born Englishman, despite the fact their status as English subjects was authorized by a Naturalization Act enacted by Parliament and not by natural law. I makes no difference which of the many sometimes misleading terminologies are used, including natural born subject or naturalized citizen versus natural born citizen, the meaning and substance of the law is what determines whether a child born abroad is figuratively a naturalized subject or citizen by unnatural statutory law or actually a natural born citizen by natural law.

Some people have attempted to argue the phrase, natural born citizen, as it was used in the Constitution could have meant a person born with alien parentage, because English/British law recognized a person born in the jurisdiction with alien parents was an English/British subject. This argument fails for many reasons. Among those failed arguments, we know the original draft only required the President to be a U.S. citizen for the required period of residency. If the authors had intended for the child of one or two alien parents to be sufficient to qualify to become President no further changes would have been needed. But a change was made, and the change was proposed by the future Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, John Jay, when he argued the President must be a natural born citizen to keep a foreigner from becoming the Commander-in-Chief of the American Army. The word, foreigner, at that time indicated a person having any personal relationship with a foreign allegiance. Ted Cruz was born with a personal allegiance to two foreign governments, Canada and Cuba. Marco Rubio was born with an allegiance to Cuba, due to his parents being citizens of Cuba at the time he was born in the United States.


53 posted on 02/06/2016 3:22:15 AM PST by WhiskeyX
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To: RC one
I'm with you. Trying to follow it all, there are declarations that "natural born" is under the jurisdiction of the US at birth. Rubio's parents were in the US legally and they never sought to identify their son as legally Cuban.

A big concern should be that, as we can see with Chief Justice Roberts, Obama, Dan Hastart, and the list goes on, it never works out well for we the people when pols have something out there that can bring them down.

Probably the only thing I'll ever give McCain credit for is he or his advisors had the sense to get some kind of declaration that he qualified as a natural born citizen before he ran.

54 posted on 02/06/2016 3:22:54 AM PST by grania
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To: John Valentine

“It is entirely within the sovereign power of the United States Congress to define the indicia it will use to determine - not grant - citizenship at birth, aka natural born citizenship.”

No, the Constitution and Congress have no power to make any person a natural born citizen. Any person made a citizen by an act of the Constitution and by Congress is by definition a naturalized citizen.


55 posted on 02/06/2016 3:26:18 AM PST by WhiskeyX
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To: RC one

The question is; Should he?
We need an American.
One foreign born with an obscure past is enough.


56 posted on 02/06/2016 3:26:22 AM PST by patriot08 (5th generation Texan ...(girl type))
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To: Cboldt

Due to the fact that the procedures put in place by Britain require those individuals blessed with British citizenship by descent make themselves known to the British authorities and register as a British citizen, I admit that technically Trump is not a dual citizen.

He is merely entitled to be one. I find this to be a distinction without much of a difference. And as you must certainly be aware, I have always held this to be immaterial to his eligibility to serve as President.

It’s just a curiosity to be paraded out when the discussion becomes too ethereal for words.


57 posted on 02/06/2016 3:27:02 AM PST by John Valentine (Deep in the Heart of Texas)
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To: grania
But is lord McCain really ‘natural born’? What authority does Congress have to declare what is US natural born? Personally, given Obama is not natural born, lord McCain either knowingly or got duped into taking away the limelight off Obama... It would have been just plain racist to question the legitimacy of Obama’s roots.
58 posted on 02/06/2016 3:32:17 AM PST by Just mythoughts (Jesus said Luke 17:32 Remember Lot's wife.)
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To: John Valentine

‘And, if the phony ‘dual citizenship’ standard were adopted, so would Donald Trump, since he is eligible for British citizenship merely asserting his right to it..’
Trump is not eligible for British citizenship because his mother was a naturalized USA citizen in 1942, 4 years before Trump’s birth. Born in USA to 2 USA citizen parentS, Trump is a nbc constitutionally eligible to the president. (NOTE - parents don’t have to be born in USA - Cruz intentionally said this to confuse the issue!)
As to Romney, Goldwater, McCain and obama, they were all challenged on their constitutional eligibility due to their dual citizenship !


59 posted on 02/06/2016 3:34:55 AM PST by chrisnj
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To: John Valentine

I did not say that the common law of England is the Common law of the United States though, did I? I said the constitution is “written in the language of the English common law” and it most certainly is. that does not mean that English common law is the common law of the United States; however, the English Common Law most definitely was the law of this land from 1607 until until 1788 so there is no denying its influence over our law.


60 posted on 02/06/2016 3:35:50 AM PST by RC one ("...all persons born in the allegiance of the United States are natural-born citizens" US v. WKA)
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