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What US birth certificate? He was born in Canada, but you you knew that.
Posted on 03/20/2016 11:46:56 AM PDT by conservativejoy
With all of the non-stop coverage of the 2016 presidential election, have you noticed as of late that Donald Trump has not said a peep about Ted Cruz not being eligible for the presidency? Earlier this year, Trump questioned whether Cruz was a natural born citizen because he was born in Calgary, Canada (to a U.S. citizen mother). Trump asserted this very question would be caught up in the court for years. Much editorial space was spent on major newspaper and TV networks discussing this issue. Many legal scholars even agreed that Trump may have a case against Cruz.
This weekend, it occurred to me, this issue has faded from the public eye. The major media outlets stopped talking about it (maybe because Trump has moved on to other things.) But, it remains an important and largely unresolved question. So, I decided to look through some of the filings in the lawsuits filed against Cruz, and discovered an opinion from a Pennsylvania Senior Judge Dan Pellegrini that gives an absolute smack down to all of these Ted Cruz birther claims. Judge Pellegrini in his 22 page memorandum opinion found that Ted Cruz was a natural born citizen thereby ruling that Cruz’s name can appear on the Republican primary ballot in Pennsylvania on April 26, 2016. Why this particular opinion piqued my interest is that it is the first I have seen anywhere that actually tackles the Constitutional questions surrounding Cruz’s eligibility. For example, cases in Utah and Florida, were recently dismissed on procedural technicalities (like standing). What is even more shocking - the opinion was issued last week - and I couldn't find any major network or newspaper covering it. (WSJ had a short blog post, and a few local newspapers covered it in PA). You would think that on the heels of such extensive coverage of the issue earlier this year, that the media would jump all over the first major opinion to addresses these important Constitutional questions that Trump brought up during the campaign. I guess, that's wishful thinking, but I will go through the opinion, anyway, as I think its illustrative of what will be found if/when this question is appealed to an even higher court, perhaps even the U.S. Supreme Court.
The heart of the question stems from Article II, Section I, of the U.S. Constitution which requires that a President be a "natural born" citizen. The challenge was filed by Carmon Elliot, a registered Republican in Pennsylvania. Elliot claimed Cruz should not be allowed to appear in the ballot because he is not a "natural born citizen."
Firstly, Cruz's attorneys argued that the Court should not address this issue at all because it is a "political question" that should not be addressed by the Judiciary. The judge found "no Constitutional provision places such power in Congress to determine Presidential eligibility." Bottom line (and this is important), the judge found that the courts can move forward with deciding the case.
So how did Judge Pellegrino of the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania arrive at his decision that Cruz was eligible?
The judge relies on several pieces on legal scholarship. First, a memo produced in 1968 by Charles Gordon, then the General Counsel of the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service, which says: "The Framers were well aware of the need to assure full citizenship rights to the children born to American citizens in foreign countries." He also points out a 2011 Congressional Research Service Memo entitled the "Qualification for President and the ‘Natural Born’ Citizenship Eligibility Requirement." The document concludes:
"The weight of legal and historical authority indicated that the term 'natural born' citizen would mean a person, who is entitled to U.S. citizenship 'by birth' or 'at birth' either by being born 'in' the United States and under its jurisdiction, even those born to alien parents; by being born abroad to U.S. citizen-parents."
Then the judge spends four pages quoting from the recent work of Paul Clement & Neal Katyal in the Harvard Law Review, in which the two Constitutional scholars (from different sides of the political aisle) conclude that "as Congress has recognized since the Founding, a person born abroad to a U.S. citizen parent is generally a U.S. citizen from birth with no need for naturalization. And the phrase 'natural born citizen' in the Constitution encompasses all such citizens from birth."
In his conclusion, the Judge states:
Having extensively reviewed all articles cited in the opinion, as well as many others, this Court holds, consistent with the common law precedent and statutory history, that a "natural born citizen" included any person who is a United States citizen from birth.Accordingly, because he was a citizen of the United States from birth, Ted Cruz is eligible to serve as President of the United States..
The judge's decision is ripe for a higher court review, but it is significant nonetheless. As election law expert Dan Tokaji points out in the Election Law Blog this case could ultimately be headed for the U.S. Supreme Court.
"A state court ruling would be helpful, but only a Supreme Court ruling could dispel the uncertainty surrounding its meaning. The good news is that review of a state court decision on Cruz's eligibility could be sought in the U.S. Supreme Court. The Supreme Court’s jurisdiction to review federal law questions is broader than that of lower federal courts," he wrote.
So perhaps, one thing Trump said is correct that this question could end being caught up in the courts for some time. The petitioner, Mr. Elliot, already said he plans to appeal the Judge’s decision.
Maybe you didn’t read the “in his jurisdiction” part of my comment?
It means nothing unless and until taken up at SCOTUS.
Your standard has never been THE standard. It’s just that the true standard has never been tested before.
They certainly would not have thought Barry Soetoro/Barck Hissein Obama, British subject and Indonesian citizen was eligible, he was not a citizen at the tme of the adoption of the Constitution so the natural born citizen part should have been applied. He’s not one.
The judge based his opinion on a memo. The same memo that states every anchor baby has the right to be president. You don’t see a problem with that.
Gee, were Trump’s Lawyers arguing the case?
If not, the Headline is ignorantly misleading at best or intentionally deceiving at worst..
The Judge didn’t rule against Donald Trump’s Birther Claims since he was not part of the Case.
If you aren't following a thread, you shouldn't comment on it.
The OP that started this thread made a claim that it was incredible that "no one covers" "the fact" that Ted Cruz would be the first President not actually born in the US.
No one covers it, because it is not "a fact." NONE of the Founders were born in the United States. Attempts to salvage his fraudulent abuse of history by attempting to change the subject do not change the historical record.
English Common Law was NEVER adopted as the law of the United States, despite its prevalence in many of the individual states. In fact most of the Framers were actively hostile to the notion. Most certainle our citizenship would NEVER have been modeled on the English law which at the time did not even cosider the notion of “citizenship”.
The English were subjects of the King, and we Americans determined that we would NEVER be subjects again. If yoy recall correctly, we fought a very tough war to establish just that.
It’s not “meaningless” in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
“Cruz could spend $10.00 at kinkos/staples (Mitt should get him the ex employee discount) and make copies of his US Birth certificate.”
Ted Cruz does not have a U.S. birth certificate, real or fake. If he tried to fake his birth certificate the way Obama did, he would not have had people in the State Department prepared to suppress the evidence the way they did so for Obama.
Of course he did. If he rules against the same claims that Trump would have made, he has made the same decision.
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What US birth certificate? He was born in Canada, but you you knew that.
That is the only point of my post to this historical ignoramus. Your attempts to divert the fact that a fellow Trumpbot was, as usual, loose with the record is a nullity in this discussion.
Your reply is ludicrous, the founders exempted themselves from the natural born citizen requirement but expected it to be followed after that. No President after those exempted has been born in a foreign country.
First, a memo produced in 1968 by Charles Gordon, then the General Counsel of the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service, which says: “The Framers were well aware of the need to assure full citizenship rights to the children born to American citizens in foreign countries.” He also points out a 2011 Congressional Research Service Memo entitled the “Qualification for President and the ‘Natural Born’ Citizenship Eligibility Requirement.” The document concludes:
While at the immigration agency, Mr. Gordon argued eight cases before the Supreme Court. ‘’He was known as a liberal and someone in favor of a more open, fairer immigration policy,’’ Mr. Roberts said, but sometimes he had to argue positions with which he disagreed.
Best summation so far.
All I know for certain, is that if Miss Ralston, my 9th grade Civics teacher, had had the question of “what is a natural born citizen” as an exam question, and my answer was a guy who was born in Canada, whose father was a Cuban, she would have definitely marked that answer wrong, and probably would have kept me for an hour’s detention after school for a week for such an idiotic answer.
Does anyone besides me find these new definitions of natural born and presidential eligibility positively Orwellian? Pundits and media, and lawyers judges suddenly amazingly insisting that people with foreign born parent(s,) or who born in other countries with and who inherit citizenship in that country at birth, whose parents are illegal aliens, are somehow natural born American citizens?
And, we who were born and grew up in this country with American parents, wondering how this could suddenly be, when we and our American parents and grandparents were, and their parents and grandparents before them, were all taught something entirely different? And so we are called “birthers” which is supposed to be an insult!
And why does this not bother the Cruz supporters, who are supposed to be the ones who really care about the constitution more than anyone else, one little bit?
What element of the constitution will next be turned upside down? And will we again called names, the media and the pundits will try to cow us, even by our own side who somehow see a short-term benefit by redefining constitutional principles, never looking beyond the immediate moment. Is it so wrong to insist the constitution has unchangeable meaning, and that our judges and lawmakers, our politicians, our media, et al, not distort and twist that meaning? Is this, or is this not, a representative republic?
Don’t let the fact that all those guys were born in the commonwealths of the original 13 colonies get in your way either, FRiend.
This is my position. They didn't follow the rules with Obama, so we don't have to follow the rules with Cruz.
We don't know that Obama is not foreign born. There is some evidence to suggest he was actually born in Canada.
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