See no eligibility. Speak no eligibility. Hear no eligibility.
Posted on 08/30/2013 12:02:15 PM PDT by Jim Robinson
By Ilya Shapiro, Senior Fellow In Constitutional Sudies and Editor-In-Chief, Cato Supreme Court Review
As we head into a potential government shutdown over the funding of Obamacare, the iconoclastic junior senator from Texas — love him or hate him — continues to stride across the national stage. With his presidential aspirations as big as everything in his home state, by now many know what has never been a secret: Ted Cruz was born in Canada.
(Full disclosure: I’m Canadian myself, with a green card. Also, Cruz has been a friend since his days representing Texas before the Supreme Court.)
But does that mean that Cruz’s presidential ambitions are gummed up with maple syrup or stuck in snowdrifts altogether different from those plaguing the Iowa caucuses? Are the birthers now hoist on their own petards, having been unable to find any proof that President Obama was born outside the United States but forcing their comrade-in-boots to disqualify himself by releasing his Alberta birth certificate?
No, actually, and it’s not even that complicated; you just have to look up the right law. It boils down to whether Cruz is a “natural born citizen” of the United States, the only class of people constitutionally eligible for the presidency. (The Founding Fathers didn’t want their newly independent nation to be taken over by foreigners on the sly.)
What’s a “natural born citizen”? The Constitution doesn’t say, but the Framers’ understanding, combined with statutes enacted by the First Congress, indicate that the phrase means both birth abroad to American parents — in a manner regulated by federal law — and birth within the nation’s territory regardless of parental citizenship. The Supreme Court has confirmed that definition on multiple occasions in various contexts.
There’s no ideological debate here: Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe and former solicitor general Ted Olson — who were on opposite sides in Bush v. Gore among other cases — co-authored a memorandum in March 2008 detailing the above legal explanation in the context of John McCain’s eligibility. Recall that McCain — lately one of Cruz’s chief antagonists — was born to U.S. citizen parents serving on a military base in the Panama Canal Zone.
In other words, anyone who is a citizen at birth — as opposed to someone who becomes a citizen later (“naturalizes”) or who isn’t a citizen at all — can be president.
So the one remaining question is whether Ted Cruz was a citizen at birth. That’s an easy one. The Nationality Act of 1940 outlines which children become “nationals and citizens of the United States at birth.” In addition to those who are born in the United States or born outside the country to parents who were both citizens — or, interestingly, found in the United States without parents and no proof of birth elsewhere — citizenship goes to babies born to one American parent who has spent a certain number of years here.
That single-parent requirement has been amended several times, but under the law in effect between 1952 and 1986 — Cruz was born in 1970 — someone must have a citizen parent who resided in the United States for at least 10 years, including five after the age of 14, in order to be considered a natural-born citizen. Cruz’s mother, Eleanor Darragh, was born in Delaware, lived most of her life in the United States, and gave birth to little Rafael Edward Cruz in her 30s. Q.E.D.
So why all the brouhaha about where Obama was born, given that there’s no dispute that his mother, Ann Dunham, was a citizen? Because his mother was 18 when she gave birth to the future president in 1961 and so couldn’t have met the 5-year-post-age-14 residency requirement. Had Obama been born a year later, it wouldn’t have mattered whether that birth took place in Hawaii, Kenya, Indonesia, or anywhere else. (For those born since 1986, by the way, the single citizen parent must have only resided here for five years, at least two of which must be after the age of 14.)
In short, it may be politically advantageous for Ted Cruz to renounce his Canadian citizenship before making a run at the White House, but his eligibility for that office shouldn’t be in doubt. As Tribe and Olson said about McCain — and could’ve said about Obama, or the Mexico-born George Romney, or the Arizona-territory-born Barry Goldwater — Cruz “is certainly not the hypothetical ‘foreigner’ who John Jay and George Washington were concerned might usurp the role of Commander in Chief.”
Well, he had fair warning in advance. So be it.
Oh yeah, onyx...you SAY they’re natural born but a certain element within cyberspace does not agree.
And if you do not agree with them (they don’t even agree with each other), then WHO are YOU to say????
(Kidding...)
Do you know what the word, "pleonasm" or maybe the phrase "legal doublet" means.
Look up the definitions.
Then look at the US Constitution for possible pleonasms or doublets other than "NBC".
For example see the phrase "letters of marque and reprisal". Then look up the definition of just "letters of marque" which means a "license to engage in reprisal...".
Using your words, what function does the word “reprisal” have?
“I’m stating that if you post another slanderous attack on Mark Levin”
I never knew the guy was off limits. Noted.
Buuuuump!
LOL.
Yep, you’re so right.
Well, it’ll be news to them and my daughter.
George Washington’s signature on that legislation had a caveat. So we know that even he felt there was an exception. That legislation was repealed five years later for some reason. There is evidence pointing both ways as to the status of citizens born overseas.
Both sides quoting laws and declaring that they’re right does no good. Each side is further alienating the other.
You think one thing. I think another. John Doe thinks something else and so does Jane. The issue is very personal to FReepers on both sides.
Do you want to keep FR united or do you want to be right? I’m willing to stop arguing for the sake of FR. Are you?
You betcha!
I agree. However, under certain circumstances, I could find the logic to support Cruz for President. I could not support him by making believe that he is a Natural Born Citizen though.
Question... Are citizens, born on our soil of 2 American citizen parents and are clearly eligible but who are at the same time the product of the left wing socialist education system, the natural born citizens our founders had in mind when they authored the eligibility requirement in the Constitution?
I don't think so....
In a time of war, when it is a matter of survival, it is sometimes necessary to suspend certain principles, liberties and rules.
I think we are at this kind of turning point. So, in order to save the union, if it came down to choosing a non eligible person like Cruz or a far left but eligible Candidate like Hillary, I would not stay home. I would hold my nose and vote for Cruz. It's war.
BUT until then, I can not be silent.
Hopefully, Cruz will take the high road, declare himself to be ineligible, vigorously support and campaign for an eligible conservative like Palin and because of his honesty, be an even stronger force for reviving our nation..... God Save Us
I would like to delete my account but I don’t know how. If you would be so kind as to do it for me, I would appreciate it. Thank You.
I think you had posted or posted on that other thread making claims that Mark Levin had said certain things about Ted Cruz and citizenship. I replied that another possibility is that Levin was being mischaracterized.
I went to Thursday’s broadcast and listened to it. Sure enough, what was being attributed to him was actually Levin’s sarcastic quotation of a particular screed by someone else. Levin noted that the citizenship law that was in effect between 1952 and 1986 held that any child born to a single American woman was a citizen at birth if that woman had resided in the U.S. for at least 10 years, 5 of which had to have been after the age of 14 at the time of the child’s birth. Cruz easily fits the bill. Obama does not since his mother gave birth to him when she was 18 not 19 years of age.
Consider it done.
Wasn't that changed by the Immigration Act of 1795 withdrawing NBC status?
Jim:
Given the precedent set by Barry’s inauguration twice, I support Ted Cruz as a candidate for POTUS.
I note that CATO writer, Ilya Shapiro, goes out of his way to point out that if Barry was born outside the US then the same statute that makes Cruz a citizen at birth would prevent Barry from having been one.
Per Ilya Shapiro:
“So why all the brouhaha about where Obama was born, given that there’s no dispute that his mother, Ann Dunham, was a citizen? Because his mother was 18 when she gave birth to the future president in 1961 and so couldn’t have met the 5-year-post-age-14 residency requirement. Had Obama been born a year later, it wouldn’t have mattered whether that birth took place in Hawaii, Kenya, Indonesia, or anywhere else.”
Shapiro, being a friend of Cruz, doubtless ran this by him before publishing it, so it seems to me that Shapiro and likely also Cruz by stating that if Barry wasn’t born in the US he was not a US citizen and therefore ineligible could qualify them both as being a particular kind of “birther”...(which is the kind that I happen to be).
I found it amusing that when Mark Levin was reading this column by Shapiro on his radio program and got to the above quoted paragraph with clear “birther” implications, he stopped after the question posed in the first sentence and then omitted the answer that explains how Cruz’s qualifying statute would disqualify Barry. Levin muttered “Oh Lord if I go down this road, all the kooks will be shooting at me.” so he skipped over it.
Go to the link below to hear Levin omitting this part of the article @4:54:
http://therightscoop.com/mark-levin-explains-that-ted-cruz-is-a-natural-born-citizen/
I don’t know whether Sheriff Arpaio and Mike Zullo have been communicating with Ted Cruz and perhaps Ilya Shapiro, but Zullo claims they have found evidence in their confidential criminal investigation that points to Barry NOT being born in Hawaii. Perhaps Shapiro is giving a little warning to Hillary’s opposition-research team and to Barry not to press too hard on Cruz’s eligibility?
Yes, the 1790 Act was repealed 5 years later with the natural born Citizen language removed. They did it for a reason.
IOW, there is reasonable doubt. What I am saying is that any reasonable doubt must be resolved in favor of Ted Cruz.
We owe it to our posterity to ensure that any and all benefit if the doubt be resolved in favor of Ted Cruz's NBC status. He is the point man in the battle to save this republic. He hasn't declared his candidacy because to do so would place everything he says and does from that point on under the regulations of the FEC.
We need to congeal around a single Tea Party Conservative NOW. If we delay this then we run the risk of there being a half dozen conservatives running against the GOPe candidate and in the end we will end up with another McCain or Romney.
So we can't wait until he declares before we work out this issue. We have to decide right here and right now whether or not we can support him for president, and those who insist that they could never support him because they think that it was the intention of the founders to exclude such a patriot in the face of the present constitutional crisis can and should find another forum to poison the well.
We need to air this issue out now and we need to find out who is with us and who is against us.
No court will ever rule that Ted Cruz is not a Natural Born Citizen. So this issue is a destructive distraction.
My plea is that all patriotic and pro-life and pro liberty Freeper will find it within their conscience to give Ted Cruz theq benefit of the doubt. This is nothing less than the most liberal or the most constitutionally conservative courts would do. It is not too much to ask.
“..If there is any reasonable doubt as to whether Ted Cruz would be a NBC then as pro life Christians and patriots, we owe it to both ourselves and our posterity to give Ted Cruz the benefit of that doubt.
Our posterity is counting on us to do all we can to preserve the blessings of Liberty for them. Dividing over this issue at a time like this will do nothing to accomplish that mission.”
Great post!
I think Ted Cruz is somebody special. He is extremely bright, very articulate and (perhaps most important of all) he is not intimidated by the MSM or by the elites who seem to favor compromise or surrender on all fronts. I don't know of anyone else out there who is quite like him. So, it's not like you can easily find a replacement for him.
I think Ted Cruz has a good shot at winning the nomination in 2016 and, if he wins the nomination, I think he has a good shot at being elected our next president.
Go back to pounding on Obama! ;-)
Ted Cruz - 2016
See no eligibility. Speak no eligibility. Hear no eligibility.
Oh Noes
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