Posted on 01/15/2016 6:27:34 AM PST by Kaslin
Donald Trump is right: Ted Cruz has a problem. By raising the "birther" issue, Trump is planting the seeds for a legal challenge should Cruz ultimately win the Republican presidential nomination. At the moment, Trump is hoping that all he has to do to stop Cruz's rise in the polls is to question whether the senator is even eligible to become president. But Trump won't stop there if Cruz's growing supporters don't defect over the birther issue.
The issue is complicated, and the merits have never been fully litigated. Federal law confers automatic citizenship to any child born outside the United States as long as one parent is a U.S. citizen at the time of the birth and meets other specific criteria. In Cruz's case, though he was born in Canada and his father was not a U.S. citizen, his mother was. In order to be granted automatic citizenship by law in 1970, Cruz had to have one parent who not only was a U.S. citizen, by birth or naturalization, but also had lived in the United States for at least 10 years -- at least five of them after the age of 14.
Cruz's American-born mother met all the qualifications, so he was born a U.S. citizen. Case closed? I think so -- and most constitutional scholars agree, but not all.
A small group of constitutional scholars argues that eligibility is far more restrictive. The debate centers around a single sentence in Article 2 of the Constitution: "No Person except a natural born Citizen ... shall be eligible to the Office of President." In an op-ed for The Washington Post this week, Widener University law professor Mary Brigid McManamon claims that the phrase "natural born Citizen," which appears only once in the Constitution, means that only people born on U.S. soil are eligible to become president. She asserts that the Founding Fathers included the phrase to adopt the English common law definition of citizenship -- jus soli, or the law of the soil -- which conferred citizenship on the basis of birthplace.
So does this arcane issue really matter? Most voters seem to dismiss it, with a new Bloomberg Politics/Des Moines Register poll showing that 83 percent of Iowans don't care that Cruz was born in Canada. But polls don't settle constitutional issues; courts do. All it will take to cause major problems for Cruz is a lawsuit.
Several such lawsuits were filed against Barack Obama in 2008, alleging falsely that he was born in not Hawaii but Kenya. Those lawsuits were dismissed because the plaintiffs lacked standing; they could show no individual harm to themselves even if their claims turned out to be true.
But if Cruz continues to eat into Trump's support by winning Iowa and picking up Trump supporters in South Carolina, Nevada and elsewhere, you can bet Trump will call in his lawyers. He says he wouldn't want to win that way -- for now, at least -- but he is famously litigious. He'll try to win any way he can, and if it means bringing suit against Cruz, so be it. As the early front-runner for the GOP nomination in a highly contested race, Trump could show that Cruz's candidacy caused him actual harm should the senator become the nominee. Trump might not even have to wait that long to force a hearing in the courts.
Meanwhile, Cruz is being pushed to deal with questions about his eligibility, which throws his campaign off track. There is some delicious irony in Cruz's predicament. After all, he wants to deny birthright citizenship to children born in the United States to parents who are here illegally. He acknowledges that doing so would require amending the Constitution, because the 14th Amendment clearly states that people born on U.S. soil are citizens. But as satisfying as it might be to hoist Cruz with his own nativist petard, the constitutional issue is more important than Cruz.
If Cruz had more friends in Congress, he might be able to pre-empt a legal challenge by getting legislation passed to make clear that citizenship at birth, not whether a person was actually born on U.S. soil, satisfies the constitutional requirement of "natural born Citizen." Alas, not many members of either party are likely to come to his aid.
Ted Cruz indeed has a problem. And his name is Donald Trump.
Linda Chavez eating one of her own? Hmmmn.
Wait until Trump starts zeroing in on Cruz’s Goldman Sachs problem.
Yet another talking head who doesn’t really understand what the “natural born citizen” debate is actually about.
That should tell you something.
The fix is in folks: Trump has managed to sell Kay Bailey Hutchison's 2007 touchback amnesty plan.
>> Ted Cruz indeed has a problem. And his name is Donald Trump.
I’m “all in” for Cruz; I’m generally supportive of Trump.
This will be an interesting test of character and leadership, for both men.
I can say this: if Trump “goes there” with lawsuits and so forth, my general support for him will come to an abrupt, screeching halt and I will flip over to being a sworn enemy of him and his supporters.
However if Trump just jawbones the issue, then fine; let the chips fall where they may. I think grappling with the question will bring out the best in Ted Cruz, frankly.
[Yet another talking head who doesn’t really understand what the “natural born citizen†debate is actually about.]
Yet another Cruzbot who doesn’t really understand why it IS even a debate.
Ted Cruz Conservatism indeed has a problem. And his name is Donald Trump.
Fixed it.
TET, THESE SAME ARGUMENTS WERE AND CONTINUE TO BE SPOKEN, MANY TIMES ABOUT OBAMA’S BIRTH AFTER BEING ELECTED TWICE TO PRESIDENT.
Completing his stalking-horse mission for his true party of allegiance, the Democrats.
UPDATE A brouhaha recently erupted about Cruz/s disclosure of the loan. In what was clearly a pre-meditated move (to give himself cover), Cruz did disclose the G/S loan....BUT not on the FEC form required by law. Says he will now amend the FEC form.
Is this why?
The G/S loan is a bigger problem for Cruz than most candidates b/c of the way he/s structured his campaign.
He fashions himself a homegrown guy w/ working class values, a harsh critic of big banks and Wall Street....says he/s just a Texas rube who/ll never have his name on a plane.
<><> But the whopper G/S loan makes him look like a
slick pol, a powermonger who/ll go against his own principles to get into office.
<><> The loan also reflects on Cruz/s eagerness to greatly expand H-1B visas.
UT OH--QUID PRO QUO LOOMS Goldman Sachs employs hundreds of H-1B visa holders. Cruz/s drumbeat for H-1B/s never mentions that he was on the hook to H-1B user Goldman for over a million.
FLIP FLOPPING AWAY Now, of course, Cruz wants to end H-1B visas. Maybe the terms of the loan have been amended?
Cruz has a Trump problem far more serious than the NBC issue...it’s called being behind in all the early states after Iowa (even some polls in Iowa) and all the national polls.
Cruz blasting anyone who dares say he isn't a citizen is very telling.
As the Bard sagely wrote Methinks he protesteth too much.
I also can't imagine that this issue would not plague, and potentially sink, Cruz should he win the nomination.
As someone who likes Cruz, he needs to put this to bed now. And I don't mean by besting someone in a debate or having the most legal scholars side with him in newspaper articles. I mean a definitive legal decision.
Hillary will be all over the issue. She would have been anyway. And deep down, you know it.
I also think the reaction by others who like Cruz is a bit over the top. It's a political campaign. The object is for these guys to go after each other and earn the nod.
Trump is trying to clear this up so the Dems and GOPe can’t use the issue themselves. Possibly to protect Cruz as a VP candidate.
How about sticking with the TRUTH. Cruz took out a loan against his and his wife’s INVESTMENTS.
Or are you more into telling falsehoods and smears to support a known flip flopping N.E. Limousine Liberal?
All Ted needs to do is shorten his sentences and make his attacks sharper and factual. Waxing and waning using up clock time and hurts him in his defensive rebuttals. And quit being Mr. Nice Guy.
Idiocy, sheer idiocy.
First no opponent has anything to gain from a court challenge. That would just end the controversy- IMO in Cruz’s favor.
Any opponent who sued would be helping Cruz.
Maybe a nice guy like Carson would help him out.
Secondly the congress cannot change the Constitution by legislation.
I agree but we should at least stick to the facts and the truth of such matters, don’t you think?
Says them. Is there paperwork out there that can be looked at?
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