TED CRUZ 2016. All You Need to Know.....
Posted on 07/21/2013 5:34:04 PM PDT by Cold Case Posse Supporter
Since Canadian born Ted Cruz has emerged on the scene in Washington as a future presidential candidate for 2016, attention has turned to whether he is Constitutionally eligible for Article 2 Section 1, the presidential qualification clause. This is what we know. Ted Cruz was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Many say that disqualifies him to be eligible for the presidency. Enter former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm. She was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. I came across an interview she did with Fox News's Chris Wallace in February of 2010. During the interview Wallace brought up the fact that since she was born in Canada, she wasn't eligible to be president. Here is the transcript:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/02/21/transcript-fox-news-sunday-interview-future-gop/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%253A+foxnews%252Fpolitics+%2528Text+-+Politics%2529
"GRANHOLM: No, I’m totally focused this year on creating every single job I can until the last moment. December 31st at midnight is when I’ll stop. So I have no idea what I’m going to do next, but I’m not going to run for president. I can tell you that.
WALLACE: Yes, that’s true. We should point out Governor Granholm is a Canadian and cannot run for president.
GRANHOLM: I’m American. I’ve got dual citizenship.”
With that said, I went to the biography of Jennifer Granholm and found that she was born to one American citizen and is indeed a dual Citizen who became 'NATURALIZED' as a U.S. Citizen in 1980 at the age of 21. Now this raises a question. How can a naturalized U.S. Citizen become president of the United States?
Continued below.
To support their position they cite a court case, note the fact that the case does not support their position, dismiss that fact, and claim the cite supports their position.
It is asinine. Any judge that cites Ankeny is an idiot.
Justices Moore and Parker are two votes out of nine, no different than Scalia and Alito or Roberts and Thomas at SCOTUS. However every one of the nine Justices on the Alabama Supreme Court is a Republican. The plaintiffs are Republicans and the defendant and her Alabama Attorney General’s office attorneys are all Republicans as well. Barack Obama is not a party to the Alabama appeal.
If the plaintiffs were to prevail, Beth Chapman, the Secretary of State of Alabama would have to get a Letter of Verification for Obama’s birth certificate from the Hawaii state Registrar just like the Secretaries of State in Arizona and Kansas did. The only difference is that the Secretaries of State in Arizona and Kansas got their Letters of Verification BEFORE the 2012 presidential election. This one would be coming after the election and the certification of Alabama’s electoral votes. Mitt Romney already won Alabama’s electoral votes.
Since it has been three years and literally hundreds of lawsuits later and no judge or court has dissented from the ruling in Ankeny, it remains on firm legal ground. EVERY judge presented with a citation from the Ankeny decision has been persuaded by it, without exception. We know that because no judge has written an opinion dissenting from or challenging Ankeny.
Was Cruz born of at least one parent who was an American citizen?
I certainly understand your point, Ray. But once again, see the latter part of my reasoning in 469.
I maintain, based on the evidence - which there's actually quite a bit of - that every Congress throughout US history, with the quite possible exception of the Third Congress in 1795, that has ever passed a "naturalization law" specifying that persons born overseas to US citizens are citizens at birth, has done so under the understanding that "citizen by birth" and "natural born citizen" are equivalent terms.
Because that's what the understanding has always been. In popular usage, and in political usage, and in legal usage all alike.
Bayard said that citizens at birth were natural born citizens. Chief Justice John Marshall obviously agreed. Even John Bingham used the two terms "citizens by birth" and "natural born citizens" as synonyms.
When James Bayard wrote his exposition of the Constitution in 1834, the law that was in effect was the Naturalization Act of 1802.
Bayard was writing less than 50 years after the adoption of the Constitution. The last of the major Founders, James Madison, was still alive at the time Bayard wrote his exposition of the Constitution.
And Bayard was crystal clear that a man didn't have to be born on US soil to be a natural born citizen and eligible for the Presidency. He was very explicit about this point. Being born a citizen was enough.
And John Marshall, who was really a significant Founder himself, and who had dominated the Supreme Court for almost 35 years, was completely in agreement with Bayard.
So obviously, both of these men would have agreed that when Congress passed the 1802 Naturalization Act saying that those born overseas to citizen parents were citizens at or by birth, this was the equivalent of saying that they were natural born citizens.
Senator Cruz’s mother, Eleanor Darragh was born and raised in the state of Delaware, in a family of Irish and Italian descent.
Once again, here we have a court (in Farrar) equating "citizen at birth" and "natural born citizen."
Ankeny, quoted by Farrar, ALSO equates the two concepts. Ankeny, in fact, quotes Wong, which equates "at birth" and "natural born:"
"Natural-born British subject’ means a British subject who has become a British subject at the moment of his birth.’
The birther claim that it takes two citizen parents plus birth on US soil has been destroyed again and again and again. Even the authorities that birthers use to argue the position (see, for example, Bellei above) contradict them.
On the other hand, the understanding that "natural born citizen" in American law really just means "citizen at or by birth," except to the degree that people have sometimes abbreviated the qualification to "born in the United States," is completely consistent with 1) ALL major early sources of information, 2) ALL major court cases, 3) the viewpoint of ALL major historical legal experts who've spoken directly on the subject, 4) ALL known historical textbooks, and 5) the understanding of ALL major contemporary legal experts.
Including all significant conservative legal foundations.
The birther claim isn't consistent with even ONE of these 5 things.
Birtherism pretty much boils down to this:
Birthers think that "natural born citizen" SHOULD mean "born in the United States to two US citizen parents."
And they think that because they are of the opinion that that's what it SHOULD mean, therefore, that's what it actually DOES mean.
The historical and legal record is irrelevant. Anyone who disagrees with their most learned opinion is an "idiot," whether he be a most distinguished legal expert of fifty years' career, a state or federal judge carefully weighing the evidence, a US Supreme Court Justice, the entire United States Supreme Court, or one of the Founders or Framers himself.
Because the birther himself is wiser than all of the above. Combined.
Taking all the things I've read over the years of these discussions, from Venus to Minor to Wong to Rogers and on and on, they're the most consistent and make the most sense in the aggregate if that statement is true. I'd also add "native born" in there somehow. (Obviously, you can be a citizen at birth without being native born, so it's not a strict correspondence.)
At this point, I'm willing to admit that you can find a piece of a law here or a paragraph in a court decision there that seems to state something different. And I suppose if someone were put in charge of regularizing all of our laws, that'd be something to address. I also suppose that if there ever were a full-fledged SCOTUS hearing on eligibility, those bits and pieces would get a full airing.
But the vast majority of laws and decisions hang together best and require the least tortured reading if native born means natural born, and citizen at birth means natural born.
Given that, I'll probably have little to say on the subject henceforth, except maybe to correct errors of fact and completely bogus interpretations.
Yes, and that is why Ted Cruz is because of natural law a natural born citizen.
Ted's mother was a U.S. citizen, a 100% American mother. Just as an apple tree can produce only apples, an American mother can only produce an American son, a U. S. citizen at birth.
And, of course, it doesn't matter that Ted was born in Canada. Planting an apple tree (American mother) in the middle of an orange grove (foreign soil) changes nothing because that apple tree will continue to produce only apples and never an orange.
That's natural law! ;-)
Ted Cruz - 2016.
I think it's not unreasonable to say that the law is not 100% tidy and wrapped up in a bow.
It seldom is.
95%? Yes. 97 or 98%? Most likely. 99%? Probably. 100%? No.
The thing is, to hear birthers talk about it, they act as if the law is about 98% in favor of their silly claims.
In reality, if they can find 2%, they're lucky. The actual law and history are probably about 98% or 99% against their point of view.
But they have combed the historical and legal record as hard as they can to find that 1% or 2%, and then acted as if it's the only opinion out there.
I don't think there's any better term for what they do than BS.
And I suppose if someone were put in charge of regularizing all of our laws, that'd be something to address. I also suppose that if there ever were a full-fledged SCOTUS hearing on eligibility, those bits and pieces would get a full airing.
They probably would.
The birther position is that such a full airing is... ESSENTIAL! DESPERATELY NEEDED TO RESOLVE THIS GIGANTIC QUESTION THAT IS HANGING OVER THE NATION!!!
Legally speaking, the case of Obama is certainly well-settled. I don't think we can regard the case of Ted Cruz as well-settled. So if he runs, we may see a lawsuit, it may reach the Supreme Court, and we may see that question formally put to rest.
But to pretend the case of Obama is anything other than settled law, that the Supreme Court refuses to rehear, is just silly.
But the vast majority of laws and decisions hang together best and require the least tortured reading if native born means natural born, and citizen at birth means natural born.
I would put it slightly differently. I would say that native-born necessarily implies natural born.
Native born has generally meant born in the United States. So if one is native born, he is born a citizen, and he is therefore a natural born citizen.
Whether his parents are citizens or not, the native born person is, with very few exceptions, a citizen at or by birth, and is therefore a natural born citizen.
So natural born includes both the native born, and those who are born citizens abroad.
That's my view.
Given that, I'll probably have little to say on the subject henceforth, except maybe to correct errors of fact and completely bogus interpretations.
So, in other words, you're going to limit your involvement to just an hour or three a day. :-)
Then the debate is closed. His mother was an American citizen. That makes him a natural born citizen.
Right?
All of which is immaterial. At the time of Cruz's birth naturalization statutes made no distinction between those assigned citizenship "at birth" or at some other time, all such persons are by law "citizen".
That’s right by me but it’s not right by others.
TED CRUZ 2016. All You Need to Know.....
But it's obvious that Cruz was a citizen at birth.
The broad understanding throughout US history, popularly, legally and legislatively, has been that if someone is a citizen at birth, he's a natural born citizen.
In accordance with that and the aforementioned facts, the most reasonable conclusion is that when Congress passed the law that that made Cruz a citizen,
1) they intended for him to be a natural born citizen, and
2) they intended THAT LAW to provide the legal force that would make Cruz a natural born citizen, and
3) they actually possessed the Constitutional authority to pass that law to do what they intended for it to do.
That, to me, is the only reasonable conclusion. Based on all the facts that I have mentioned.
Do not conflate “at birth” and “by birth”.
“At” is a point in time.
“By” is causal.
§ 1401 declares who shall be nationals and citizens of United States AT birth.
8 USC § 1401 declares who shall in law be “Nationals and citizens of United States at birth”
8 USC § 1408 declares exceptions to section 1401, those who shall in law be “Nationals but not citizens of the United States at birth”
There is no similar section which declares exceptions to section 1401, those who shall in law be “natural born citizens”
Such a declaration may have been provided by law, but is not. Do not read into the law a distinction which is not there.
You have correctly documented the folkways of the True Believer.
Yes, technically speaking, there's a distinction.
Having said that, I don't think anyone except birthers who can't let go of the way the want the law to be sees any meaningful difference between "citizen at birth" and "citizen by birth."
And when I say that no one sees a meaningful difference, I'm talking about the general public, I'm talking about legal scholars, I'm talking about historians, and I'm talking about our courts and the law.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.