Posted on 08/13/2013 3:12:38 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Via Mediaite and MFP, forget the legal niceties about what “natural born” might or should mean and look at this from a court’s perspective. Realistically, no judge is going to disqualify a national figure who stands a real chance of being the nominee of one of the two major parties unless the law leaves them no wiggle room to rule otherwise. Tens of millions of Americans would be willing to vote for Ted Cruz; to strike him from the ballot on a technicality in an ambiguous case would be momentously undemocratic. Against that backdrop, the Supreme Court would almost certainly end up reading “natural born” in the narrowest way, excluding anyone who was born abroad of two non-citizen parents but including everyone else. Cruz, who was born in Canada but whose mother was a U.S. citizen, would qualify, not only for the reason Ace gives here but more broadly because courts don’t want to be seen as hard-ass enforcers of what’s perceived by many to be an unusually archaic bit of the Constitution. They’ll dump a true foreigner because they have to. They don’t have to dump the son of an American citizen like Cruz, so they won’t. Take it to the bank.
But never mind that. Given the angst and ambiguity over the “natural born” clause in the last two cycles, why not pass an amendment to replace it with something like, say, a 25-year residency requirement? The point of the clause was to make sure that rich foreigners couldn’t cross the ocean and buy their way into the presidency, which wasn’t a baseless concern for a group of former British subjects who worried about loyalists to the throne subverting the revolution. In practice, though, it means that someone who’s born on U.S. soil but lives their entire life abroad, only to return and run for president decades later, is constitutionally more trustworthy than someone like Cruz who was born abroad but has lived his entire life here. Does anyone question whether Ted Cruz, decades later, might be more loyal to Canada than to the U.S.? Right at this moment, House Republicans are gearing up to pass a variation of the DREAM Act that would grant citizenship to illegals who were brought here at a young age by their parents on the theory that the place where you’re raised is more likely to shape your patriotic loyalty than the happenstance of your birth. If those kids are trustworthy enough to help decide at the polls who the president should be, why shouldn’t they be eligible for the presidency themselves? In a democracy, the president is, or should be, drawn from the citizenry. People who take certain draconian disqualifying actions, like committing felonies, are an exception, but what action has Cruz taken? Replace “natural born” with a residency requirement, which gives people the power to prove their loyalty, and you solve that problem.
(VIDEO-AT-LINK)
Absolutely Georgia Girl 2. The “resolution”, Senate Res. 511, April 2008 was hurriedly entered by Obama’s campaign co-chair Clare McCaskill after Obama and McCaskill’s “actionable” bill, a law, Senate Bill 2678, February 2008, the ‘‘Children of Military Families Natural Born Citizen Act’’, failed to pass.
Congress, Senator Orin Hatch, did the right thing to try to make Schwarzenegger eligible. He sponsored an amendment in 2002. But it failed. Conyers tried twice in that period, 2003, 2004, Menendez once, probably to make Obama eligible. Nickles, Rohrabacher, Frank, all of whom know the Constitutional requirement, probably had other candidates in mind, but tried to amend Article II Section 1. All failed, so McCain and Obama covered for each other, whether intentionally or not. Only one Congressman dared raise the issue, Nathan Deal, and he was silenced using the IRS to dig out of Deal's tax returns some justification for congressional ethics charges, which were dropped when he resigned from Congress (and become governor of Georgia).
It is nonsense to claim that the term natural born citizen is vague or undefined. No terms are defined in the Constitution. That claim is a red herring, often used by both parties. There is clear precedence, and dozens of clear enunciations of the common-law, which was, according to Chief Justice Morrison Waite, and 14th Amendment author, Judge and Congressman John Bingham, "never doubted."
Cruz, Obama, Chester Arthur, Marco Rubio, Jindal, Haley, all fail the requirement that a president be born to parents who were citizens when they were born. McCain was ineligible for a legal technicality, The Canal Zone was only made “sovereign U.S. Territory by Congress in 1937, the year after he was born.
Original sources are being remarkably dismissed in the face of Obama’s clear and unequivocal statement that “I am a native-born citizen of the U.S.” Those words, as the Constitutional Law Lecturer at Univ. of Chicago knows very well, define a “naturalized” citizen, using the language of the 14th Amendment. Obama told us he is naturalized and pundits on both sides insist that Article II Section 1 no longer means what it says. What does it say. Only the president must be a natural born citizen, but most U.S. citizens born a decade after the Constitution was ratified were natural born citizens. We didn't ratify the naturalization amendment, the 14th, until 1867, mostly due to the objections of states in which slaves were denied the rights of citizens. That is why our framers punted and required, in Article 1 Section 8, that Congress create "An Uniform Rule for Naturalization." Remember, no one so naturalized is eligible to the presidency, and Obama old us all he was "Born a subject of the British Commonwealth", "By the British Nationality Law of 1948." Obama is a natural born subject of Britain, and eligible to run for British Parliament, but not our presidency.
Chief Justice Morrison Waite in Minor v. Happersett, 1875:
The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners.
Chief Justice John Marshall in The Venus, 1814:
The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives or indigenes are those born in the country of parents who are citizens. Society not being able to subsist and to perpetuate itself but by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights.
14th Amendment author, Congressman John Bingham in 1866, explaining citizenship to the House. His amendment says nothing about natural born citizenship, and modifies it in no way, nor does any law current in U.S. Code. The term was used in one law, a Nationality Act in the First Congress which was rescinded entirely in 1795, and never appeared again. Congress cannot interpret the Constitution. Only the media and other self-appointed supporters of Obama’s policies, with the help of Soros’ Center for American Progress, which edited Supreme Court Cases to hide the significance of Minor v. Happersett take that privilege.
I find no fault with the introductory clause [S 61 Bill], which is simply declaratory of what is written in the Constitution, that every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen….
Michael Chertoff’s quotation is in the Senate Judiciary record of Senate Resolution 511, called “...recognizing that John Sidney McCain, III, is a natural born citizen.” SR 511 is a personal statement of opinion, full of nonsensical historical allegations that were clearly intended as talking points for politicians and the media.
“My assumption and my understanding is that if you are born of American parents, you are naturally a natural-born American citizen,” Chertoff replied. “That is mine, too,” said Leahy.”
There are many issues I take the high road on, but on this one - I’m all for Cruz at this point. Since the term, “natural born citizen” doesn’t seem to have one true meaning - and since this country elected an American-hating man for 2 terms, yeah, I’m willing to give Cruz the benefit of the doubt on this issue. He’s solid on everything else so far.
So, you hold on to your 100% checklist and we’ll probably end up with a Hillary Clinton in 2016.
I'm with you.
If in doubt, revert to natural law. In this case, I see no difficulty.
She’s such a coward for holding Cruz to a higher standard than Obama. After the election, I realized how how establishment she really is.
So..... nothing changes...
Isn’t Cruz a Cubanadian?
Coulter is just like Savage. Always blather like they’re more Conservative than thou, but will always stab a true Conservative in the back.
Ted Cruz is more qualified than the current President.
Just because someone says that a document is forged without ever launching an official grand jury investigation into the crime of forgery, doesn’t make it so.
The Obama long form was released on April 27, 2011 and no grand jury investigation of alleged forgery in more than two years for a document that is still available on the Internet for the whole wide world to see?
Based on current citizenship law, Cruz was born a citizen, therefore, he is a natural born citizen. Arguing over the meaning of natural born citizen at the time of the Constitution’s enactment is irrelevant since the Constitution puts naturalization in the hands of Congress.
His mother was a full citizen, born in Delaware, and she and his father, who didn’t become a citizen until 2005, were in Canada working for their employer.
From Wikipedia: “Cruz...attended Harvard Law School, graduating magna cum laude in 1995.[26][27][1] While at Harvard Law, Cruz was a primary editor of the Harvard Law Review, and executive editor of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, and a founding editor of the Harvard Latino Law Review.[21] Referring to Cruz’s time as a student at Harvard Law, Professor Alan Dershowitz said, “Cruz was off-the-charts brilliant”.[17][28][29][30][31][32]”
Nah, I’m backing my girl:
Question: “Do you question Obama’s faith and his citizenship?”
Governor Sarah Palin’s response:
“I don’t, and those are distractions. What we’re concerned about is the economy. And we’re concerned about the policies coming out of his administration and what he believes in terms of big government or private sector. So, no, the faith, the birth certificate, others can engage in that kind of conversation. It’s distracting. It gets annoying and let’s just stick with what really matters.”
If that's true, then I'll have to move your name from my 'suspected Obot' column, over to the 'argumentative intellectual' column.
It's tough for me to be down on anyone who supports the Mama Grizzly.
Both McCain's parents were citizens, his dad from Iowa and his mom from Oklahoma. They were living in Panama on assignment from the US military. To declare the children of career military ineligible for US citizenship is madness.
INA: ACT 320 - Children born outside the United States and residing permanently in the United States; conditions under which citizenship automatically acquired 1/
Sec. 320. [8 U.S.C. 1431] (a) A child born outside of the United States automatically becomes a citizen of the United States when all of the following conditions have been fulfilled:
(1) At least one parent of the child is a citizen of the United States, whether by birth or naturalization.
(2) The child is under the age of eighteen years.
(3) The child is residing in the United States in the legal and physical custody of the citizen parent pursuant to a lawful admission for permanent residence.
(b) Subsection (a) shall apply to a child adopted by a United States citizen parent if the child satisfies the requirements applicable to adopted children under section 101(b)(1) .
“Since the term, “natural born citizen” doesn’t seem to have one true meaning”
Yeah. It does have one meaning. American citizen born in America. Your premise is flawed. You are arguing that ‘no principle exists ergo we should not follow it’. This is no different than what liberals argue.
I do not think that, for the sake of one election, it is worth conceding this principle. There are very good reasons to want the presidency headed by someone born in America and that a conservative would deviate this principle opens the door to an election between a republican and a democrat, neither of whom were born in America, and where both are beholden not to Americans but to interests outside of America.
This is bad. Very, very bad.
“To declare the children of career military ineligible for US citizenship is madness.” The Canal Zone is American soil.
Those attacking the principle of natural born citizenship don’t care how their goal is accomplished so long as they get it. They have gotten a foreigner on one side, now all they have to do is do the same thing for republicans, and they would have gotten exactly what they want. An America, governed not by Americans, but by foreigners. Foreigners, who with the complicity of allies here who would promptly sign over American citizenship to others.
This is WHY the fathers of the United States explicitly included this principle. They had just freed the United States from governance overseas. They did not want to see America capitulated under said governance once more.
“Based on current citizenship law, Cruz was born a citizen, therefore, he is a natural born citizen.”
This is false. Natural born citizenship requires that one be born in American soil. Last I checked Canada is not considered to be American soil. Again - you are opening a door that will not easily be closed.
Your namesake would not so easily trade principles for perceived temporary electoral advantages.
No, you’re confused. I meant the letter that stayed up on the Kapi’olani Hospital Foundation web site for a full year because the letter was congratulatory in nature for the Centennial anniversary of the hospital which was founded in 1909 and celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2009.
When 2009, the centennial year was over, the letter was no longer prominently displayed on the foundation’s home page, but it is still available at the foundation’s web site today: (see page six) http://www.kapiolanigift.org/document.doc?id=22
Don’t you understand by now that every time you perpetuate an easily disproved rumor or piece of gossip (some of which is intentionally planted by the REAL Obot disinformation operatives) you help Obama, you don’t hurt him? Easily disproved rumors and gossip allow Obama to paint all of his opposition as extremists who cannot be taken seriously.
The Canal Zone being under US control at that time is irrelevant to the citizenship situation of children born to the military while their parents are on overseas assignment. Germany probably has US citizens being born every single day to US military parents.
Are we suggesting that those children are not US citizens? We want to PENALIZE those who are defending the nation from forward bases in foreign countries by stripping their children of citizenship??? That’s crazy, but it’s worse...it’s unpatriotic and it’s cruel.
The law says that he is a born US citizen. I just cited the law. Also, the US Constitution specifically gives Congress power over all issues involving naturalization. Period.
Sec. 320. [8 U.S.C. 1431] (a) A child born outside of the United States automatically becomes a citizen of the United States when all of the following conditions have been fulfilled:
(1) At least one parent of the child is a citizen of the United States, whether by birth or naturalization.
(2) The child is under the age of eighteen years.
(3) The child is residing in the United States in the legal and physical custody of the citizen parent pursuant to a lawful admission for permanent residence.
(b) Subsection (a) shall apply to a child adopted by a United States citizen parent if the child satisfies the requirements applicable to adopted children under section 101(b)(1) .
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