Congress can pipe up if it wishes, but when it comes to defining Constitutional terms, such as NBC, SCOTUS since 1803’s Marbury v. Madison has the final word.
There is no constitutional definition of the term natural born citizen. That implies the meanng was so self-evident to the Framers that there was no need to provide the definition. It is fairly obviously an adaptation of the term natural born subject from English law which existed in all the colonies prior to independence. The term natural born is unchanged. The only change was the prior subjects of the monarch became citizens of a new fangled hybrid republic where the citizens were the repository of sovereignty.
No Presidential eligibility case based on the definition of NBC has ever come to SCOTUS, so they have never had occasion to decide any such case or controversy.
SCOTUS need not even utter a By Your Leave to Congress when declaring one of its mere statutes unconstitutional, or one of its Constitutional definitions incorrect.
It does seem that the highest court would decide if a statute law is constitutional or not. But that is certainly not the final word, as shown by Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 U.S. 419 (1793) and the 11th Amendment (1795).
In Chisholm, the Court found that citizens of states could sue other states in federal court as sovereign immunity did not apply. The People replied in rebuke with the 11th Amendment:
The judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by citizens of another state, or by citizens or subjects of any foreign state.
The most powerful branch, by design, is the Legislative branch. The Legislature created the Judicial branch, and it can severely limit it or cripple it.
Ex parte McCardle 74 U.S. 506 (1868) had already been heard by the Court, but it had not yet ruled, when Congress stepped in and took away the Court's appellate authority to hear the case, leaving it unable to proceed due to lack of jurisdiction. Not only can Congress strip away appellate jurisdiction, it can annihilate the entire Judicial branch with the exception of the Supreme Court. Congress also sets the number of justices; they could reduce it to one. Congress also controls the purse.
The People are the ultimate power. They can hold a constitutional convention and create a whole new Constitution.
From Chief Justice John Marshall’s opinion in Marbury v. Madison, in which the Court declared it’s superiority over Congress in this regard:“It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. Those who apply the rule to particular cases, must of necessity expound and interpret that rule.”
I am uncertain what else the province and duty of the Judicial branch could be. They are designed as a check on the Legislative power. Congress is delegated power only to enact laws consistent with the Constitution. I don't think the location of authority is misplaced in the Judicial branch, but it has been abused at times. Lots of times.
At the outset, the President got to appoint SCOTUS justices. All the original appointees just happened to be Federalists. The Court was dominated by Federalists for decades. As these were the first to set precedent interpreting the Constitution, interpretation was deliberately warped toward a big, powerful central government. Consider a Supreme Court today with nine liberal democrat justices, and it being so dominated for thirty or forty years, and you have the nascent constitutional judicial branch. What mischief might they get up to?
The Civil War was used for similar purposes and should probably be considered as another revolution. Look at the government before the war, and what emerged from the war, and it should be clear that the relationship of the States and the Federal government were flipped upside down. 14A dictated to the States who were citizens of the States. After that it is somewhat difficult to say any State is sovereign when it has no say in who its citizens are. The former Confederate states were coerced to ratify as not enough Union states could be persuaded. It is not really clear that 14A was ever actually ratified, but there was a sort of declaration that it was, that was accepted, and that was final, official, and could not be challenged.
One look at the Federal leviathan in Washington makes one wonder how that evolved from anything the Founders had in mind. To sum it up, the Hamiltonians have prevailed. The original intent was to sell something that would be bought, and then to set about molding it into what was truly desired. Now, who knows what emanates from the next penumbra?
Quotable Quotes re Citizenship Kinds, Allegiance, and The Presidential Eligibility Clause in The United States Constitution: https://cdrkerchner.wordpress.com/2023/07/21/quotable-quotes-re-citizenship-kinds-allegiance-and-the-presidential-eligibility-clause-of-united-states/
Vivek Ramaswamy is NOT constitutionally eligible for the office he seeks!
“The Legislature created the Judicial branch”
Not so.
The members of the Constitutional Convention promulgated the proposed Constitution. In doing so, they went beyond the mandate set for them by the Articles of Confederation Congress.
To paraphrase Ben Kenobi, that was no mere legislature.