Tribe knows that with four leftist Justices in the bank who are guaranteed to vote in favor of the Democrat party, he need only pick off one of the remaining five to carry the day. But his problem is he cannot get into the court because of the problem of standing so he is attempting to solve the problem by getting some Secretary of State of one or more states, Democrats to the core, who will simply deny Cruz a place on the ballot and force a lawsuit, probably by Cruz himself.
Even if he succeeds in this scheme, Tribe faces another problem, which is justisibility or appropriateness for the court to accept jurisdiction because this is a political question best left to the people.
As to Tribe's assertion that the original intent of the framers of the Constitution concerning the issue of citizenship by descent was limited to children of fathers only, he misunderstands the issue. The point was that natural born citizenship could be obtained in foreign birth of American parents according to rules set down by Congress. Congress has always assumed that it had the power to grant citizenship by birth of foreign-born babies without requiring a process of naturalization. This is the original understanding not limited to the question whether the child is of an American father.
Acting under this understanding, Congress has extended the time required for residency in the United States and it has extended the birthright to babies of American mothers, all without the need for naturalization. Hence, the original understanding was that foreign-born babies of American parents who comply with requirements laid down by Congress are automatically citizens by birth. Since no naturalization process is required, they are natural born citizens. That is the understanding expressed by the first Congress in the act of 1790 and has never been explicitly repealed by statute or by court case.
Tribe is wrong Cruz is right, original intent was clearly as expressed above. It is Tribe who wants a malleable Constitution, not Cruz. It is tribe who is the hypocrite, not Cruz. It is remarkable that Tribe accuses Cruz of selective original intent when it is tribe who doesn't give a damn what the Constitution means, although he professes otherwise, and seeks to deploy the document only as an obstacle to conservative governance.
The real issue before us is whether Tribe can succeed in creating standing, or worse, whether Tribe can succeed in creating enough doubt about whether he can solve the standing issue to deprive Cruz of the nomination. This is, frankly, a problem that Cruz will have to deal with if it appears that this very limited argument concerning standing gains traction. My belief is that the bulk of conservatives on this thread who are reasonably well-informed will not seize on this issue and, certainly, the great mass of Republican primary voters will not consider it. They will react to bumper sticker exhortations.
