"The Candidate is a natural born citizen by virtue of being born in Canada to his mother who was a U.S. citizen at the time of his birth," the board said, reasoning that Cruz met the criteria because he "did not have to take any steps or go through a naturalization process at some point after birth."
Both objections, which on their face seemed to carry little weight, had forced lawyers for Cruz to formally respond and offer appropriate counterarguments.
In response to the filings, Cruz's lawyers relied on Supreme Court precedent, legal history and articles from noted constitutional scholars to defend the view that he is in fact "natural born" within the meaning of the Constitution.
The lawyers also pointed to the valid candidacies of two former Republican hopefuls, Sen. John McCain of Arizona and former Michigan Gov. George Romney, as examples of presidential runs that received the blessing of Congress, courts and other means to proceed, despite the fact that both men were born abroad and raised eligibility questions.
These and other sources of authority, the lawyers said, "all command the same conclusion" that Cruz complies with the "natural born" requirement.
Agenda minutes for the Illinois Board of Elections -- which include its determinations in the two challenges to Cruz's eligibility plus a separate one Graham filed against Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) -- can be found here.
Keep the lawsuits coming... the more places that validate Cruz the better.
The Illinois election commision’s “Further discussion on this issue is unnecessary.” is pretty funny, in as much as it didn’t have a discusison in the first place. The commision said ZERO words of rebuttal to the opposition argument.
St. George Tucker, an early federal judge, wrote in his 1803 edition of William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England, perhaps the leading authority for the delegates to the Constitutional Convention for the terms used in the Constitution, that the natural born citizen clause is “a happy means of security against foreign influence” and that “[t]he admission of foreigners into our councils, consequently, cannot be too much guarded against.”[33] In a footnote, Tucker wrote that naturalized citizens have the same rights as the natural-born except “they are forever incapable of being chosen to the office of president of the United States.”[34]
John Bingham, an American lawyer and politician, held to the belief that natural born should be interpreted as born in the United States. In 1862, in the House of Representatives he stated:
The Constitution leaves no room for doubt upon this subject. The words ‘natural born citizen of the United States’ appear in it, and the other provision appears in it that, “Congress shall have power to pass a uniform system of naturalization.” To naturalize a person is to admit him to citizenship. Who are natural born citizens but those born within the Republic? Those born within the Republic, whether black or white, are citizens by birth—natural born citizens.[39]
He reiterated his statement in 1866:
Every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural-born citizen; but, sir, I may be allowed to say further that I deny that the Congress of the United States ever had the power, or color of power to say that any man born within the jurisdiction of the United States, not owing a foreign allegiance, is not and shall not be a citizen of the United States. Citizenship is his birthright and neither the Congress nor the States can justly or lawfully take it from him.[40]