Posted on 11/28/2015 11:45:13 AM PST by Isara
Speaking Wednesday on Fox News Radio’s “Alan Colmes Show,” Representative Alan Grayson (D-FL) told Colmes that he would challenge Ted Cruz should the Texas Senator get the Republican nomination.
After Grayson talked about how allegedly bigoted the Republican field is, Colmes asked him for specifics.
Grayson replied, and the exchange was as follows:
GRAYSON: “Show me one who represents the exception here. In a sense, I guess Cruz is not technically that way, because technically, he's not even an America.”
COLMES: “Well, his mother was born here…”
GRAYSON: “I don't know...the Constitution says natural-born Americans, so now we're counting Canadians as natural born Americans? How does that work? I'm waiting for the moment that he gets the nomination and then I will file that beautiful lawsuit saying that he's unqualified for the job because he's ineligible.”
COLMES: “So you're saying should he get the nomination, Alan Grayson will file a lawsuit against his candidacy.”
GRAYSON: “Absolutely! Call me crazy, but I think the president of America should be an American.”
This isn’t the first time Cruz has faced the citizenship hurdle. There are those, including Donald Trump, who have made the argument that Cruz is ineligible for the presidency because of his being born in Canada.
However, a large swath of legal scholars stand firmly on the belief that Cruz is a “natural-born” citizen.
Former Solicitors General Neal Katyal (Obama admin) and Paul Clement (Bush admin) wrote a piece for the Harvard Law Review in which they argue that Cruz is indeed a “natural born” citizen:
“Congress has made equally clear from the time of the framing of the Constitution to the current day that, subject to certain residency requirements on the parents, someone born to a U.S. citizen parent generally becomes a U.S. citizen without regard to whether the birth takes place in Canada, the Canal Zone, or the continental United States…”
Katyal and Clement reach back to British common law, as well as the First Congress:
“The Supreme Court has long recognized that two particularly useful sources in understanding constitutional terms are British common law, and enactments of the First Congress. Both confirm that the original meaning of the phrase ‘natural born Citizen’ includes persons born abroad who are citizens from birth based on the citizenship of a parent.”
The former Solicitors General dive deeply into the legalities of the subject, and come to a firm conclusion that the Canadian-born Cruz would be eligible for the presidency, adding that arguments to the contrary are both “spurious,” and “specious.”
Other scholars agree, including UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh, as well as famous Harvard law professor, and self-proclaimed liberal, Alan Dershowitz, who told National Review:
“Of course he's eligible. He's a natural-born, not a naturalized, citizen.”
It looks like Rep. Alan Grayson would have to surmount conservatives and liberals alike to make the argument that Ted Cruz is anything but a natural-born American.
It should be noted that former presidential candidate John McCain was born in Coco Solo in the Panama Canal Zone. President Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton even co-sponsored Senate legislation ensuring that no one could make political hay out of a ‘phony issue.’
Since Cruz’ mother is an American citizen, maybe Rep. Grayson should avoid thunderstorms. Who knows, maybe his blatant hypocrisy and selective outrage will trigger an unexpected bolt of lightning.
The democrats didn’t say boo when big “O’s” citizenship
was brought into question: to hell with them: what’s good
for the gooase is good for the gander!
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