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.
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No. We don’t need more ambiguities thrown at the law of our land by anyone.
Obama was born in Hawaii. Cruz in Canada.
Cruz is less eligible for president than Obama.
actually it is not a question, neither is Constitutionally eligible
Take it to the SCOTUS! Let them decide. As for me, he has my vote until they say otherwise.
Good catch
Bullsquirt. The precedent has already been set with Mr. Obama. Are you saying that only Democrats can do as they wish?
Which hospital in Hawaii? The hospital they claim he was born in never heard of him. Did you know that? Yet a hospital in Kenya crows over the fact he was born there.
You have it partially right - he was declared a natural born a-hole.
Some have argued that they many times. Perkins v. Elg is one of them.
Which one is that?
But the child of an illegal alien who manages to make it across the border right before giving birth is eligible?
As I read the plain meaning of "natural born citizen," if you were, under U.S. law, a U.S. citizen at birth (regardless of where your mother was located when you were born) then you are a natural born citizen. If you were not a U.S. citizen at birth but later become a U.S. citizen then you are not a natural born citizen.
Ann has a crank!
I mean, Ann is a crank.
Cruz is less eligible for president than Obama."
Corrected
How about we define “Natural Born” as being born to 2 US citizens.
No it wasn't.
The point of the clause was to prevent what happened in Europe with the musical chairs of the European Monarchial families from being done to the United States: the imposition of a President whose loyalty was not to the nation.
“Ann has a crank!
I mean, Ann is a crank.”
Ann is ON crank
She mocks and ridicules birthers still to this very day. Wth happened to this woman?
“But the child of an illegal alien who manages to make it across the border right before giving birth is eligible?”
No. And even if this weren’t the answer to that question, it doesn’t change the facts of Ted Cruz’s birth, no matter how much you or others like him. I like him myself, from what I know of him aside from this issue and his own statements about it.
“As I read the plain meaning of “natural born citizen,” if you were, under U.S. law, a U.S. citizen at birth (regardless of where your mother was located when you were born) then you are a natural born citizen. If you were not a U.S. citizen at birth but later become a U.S. citizen then you are not a natural born citizen.”
My mother taught me that two wrongs don’t make a right. And I am convinced that you’re simply wrong in your assertions, no matter how well intended. I’ll leave it there as others can explain to you what a natural born citizen meant to the founders of this country better than I can.
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