Is she disapponited?
Posted on 05/08/2013 8:03:24 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
In one of my first essays for NRO back in 2005 (“Are You an Originalist?”), I selected the Constitution’s “natural born Citizen” criterion for eligibility to be president—a provision that then seemed at the time to be beyond the distorting effects of political bias—to illustrate that everyone intuitively recognizes the common-sense principle at the heart of the interpretive methodology of originalism: namely, that the meaning of a constitutional provision is to be determined in accordance with the meaning that it bore at the time that it was adopted. The public debate in 2008 over whether John McCain, having been born in 1936 in the Panama Canal Zone to parents who were American citizens, was a “natural born Citizen” ratified my point, as virtually all commentators purported to undertake an originalist inquiry.
I hadn’t seen any reason to comment on the left-wing “birther” attacks on Senator Ted Cruz’s eligibility to be president. Cruz was born in Canada in 1970 to a mother who was then an American citizen. Under the laws then in place, he was an American citizen by virtue of his birth.
As this Congressional Research Service report sums it up (p. 25; see also pp. 16-21), the “overwhelming evidence of historical intent, general understandings [in 18th-century America], and common law principles underlying American jurisprudence thus indicate[s] that the most reasonable interpretation of ‘natural born’ citizens would include those who are considered U.S. citizens ‘at birth’ or ‘by birth,’ … under existing federal statutory law incorporating long-standing concepts of jus sanguinis, the law of descent.” In other words, there is strong originalist material to support the semantic signal that “natural born Citizen” identifies someone who is a citizen by virtue of the circumstances of his birth—as distinguished from someone who is naturalized later in life as a citizen. (In McCain’s case, the dispute turned on whether he was indeed an American citizen by virtue of his birth—or was instead naturalized a citizen under a law enacted when he was eleven months old. For more, see law professor Gabriel Chin’s lengthy article making the case against McCain.)
To my surprise, the New Republic’s Noam Scheiber tries to argue that Cruz’s embrace of constitutional originalism somehow means that Cruz can’t determine that he is a “natural born Citizen.” But the only evidence that Scheiber offers for this position is the assertion (which Scheiber mischaracterizes as a concession) by a non-originalist law professor in an MSNBC interview that the proposition that a person is a “natural born Citizen” if he is a citizen by virtue of his birth “isn’t really clear cut if you limit yourself to the actual wording of the Constitution” (that’s Scheiber’s paraphrase) but instead depends on “how our understandings have evolved over time.” Scheiber both overlooks the powerful originalist evidence in support of Cruz’s status as a “natural born Citizen” and misunderstands how originalist methodology operates. (In public-meaning originalism, you don’t “limit yourself to the actual wording of the Constitution,” and you don’t find yourself lost simply because the Constitution “never defines what ‘natural born’ means.” You instead look to the public meaning of the term at the time it was adopted.)
My point here isn’t to contend that the originalist evidence points entirely in one direction. As law professor Michael Ramsey observes in a post that I’ve run across while finalizing this post (a post that also takes issue with Scheiber), there are originalist scholars who don’t “find the argument entirely conclusive.” But Scheiber’s piece is a cheap whack at Cruz as well as a cheap whack at originalism.
You dish it, you take it.
No. There are two kinds of citizens: Naturalized, and natural born.
This is talked about in multiple court cases.
And I have multiple good early sources that indicate that people in early America considered that Presidential eligibility simply required being born a citizen.
So you concede that a citizen by Sec. 301(a) as cited is not Article II eligible?
No. I took it, and now I'll dish it out.
I started this entire conversation politely.
In return for my politeness and honesty, I was immediately, and then repeatedly, falsely accused of all kinds of crap.
By birthers. Like you, Ray.
I've been called all kinds of insulting names.
My patriotism has been questioned. No, BEYOND questioned. I've been called a "traitor." I've been accused of "treason." I've been called an "Obama supporter." A "liberal." A "liar." A "paid shill." "Stupid." An "idiot." And plenty worse. I can't even remember all the things I've been called, or the false accusations that have been leveled against me.
Again and again and again and again, from the very beginning.
By birther jerks.
I've even been told I should be taken out and shot.
All because I actually cared about the Constitution and honesty and the truth.
It no longer bothers me. It did at first. But now I frankly don't give a damn.
So I took it. From the very beginning.
And now that I know the facts and the history and the law, I'm dishing it out.
So you'll take it, and like it.
Because believe me, brother, I'm not going to be silenced by a bunch of a******s who from the very beginning persecuted their fellow conservatives just as hard as they possibly could simply because they spoke the truth.
And by trying to twist my words, you show that you're not just an "innocent" birther, but a jerk like most of the rest of them.
As I've said many times before, Cruz's specific case has never been ruled on by the US Supreme Court. Most experts in the law believe he's eligible. I do too.
And YOU. YOU'RE here arguing that possibly the best conservative Presidential candidate we have is "not eligible," when he almost certainly is.
Jerk.
If this is how Cruz obtains citizenship then he is not Article II eligible.
Do you agree?
Whether or not he is the “best candidate” has no bearing on eligibility.
If this is how Cruz obtains citizenship then he is not Article II eligible.
Do you agree?
No, of course I don't agree.
Multiple early sources equated citizenship at birth with natural born citizenship, or said that the President had to be a citizen at or by birth.
Most contemporary scholars believe that people born US citizens abroad are eligible. I do too.
I believe Ted Cruz is eligible. It's not 100%, since the Supreme Court has never specifically ruled. But I think that almost certainly he's eligible, and almost certainly the Supreme Court would agree that he's eligible.
I understand your opinion, however according to the law you cited Sec. 301(a) he is not Article II eligible. Thank you for agreeing.
Is she disapponited?
Sorry, but that's simply not true.
Nowhere does Section 301(a) say that. It just doesn't.
It's really a matter for the US Supreme Court to decide. But again, the Founding Fathers saw seem to have seen no conflict at all in declaring that someone born a citizen overseas was eligible to the Presidency.
Natural born citizens are citizens, too.
Just because a law says you're a citizen doesn't mean you aren't a natural born citizen.
Just doesn't.
And people have understood that being born a citizen made you qualified to be President since before 1800.
Ted Cruz is eligible.
I have no idea who she is.
Why do you keep spamming these threads with BS that exceeds even the usual BS?
And allow me to point out to anyone who may still be following this thread:
One side of the discussion has an actual argument. The other side has run out of anything meaningful to say, and is simply posting BS like repeating claims that have already been debunked, and posting pictures of some woman.
Please point out where 301(a) declares an individual to be a natural born citizen.
Tell the truth: 301(a) does not declare an individual to be a natural born citizen.
Of course it doesn't "declare an individual to be a natural born citizen."
Do you not understand basic logic, Ray? Is that a good part of your problem?
I declare that I am a citizen of the United States.
The President might declare that I am a citizen of the United States.
A law might declare that I am a citizen of the United States.
Has any of those told you whether I'm a natural born citizen, or not? No.
Has any of those told you that I am NOT a natural born citizen? No.
But I am in fact a natural born citizen.
Not specifying that a citizen is natural born isn't the same thing as specifying that a citizen IS NOT natural born.
FINALLY you concede that a citizen by Sec. 301(a) as cited is not Article II eligible.
As I’ve said, I understand your opinion. I merely wanted you to acknowledge that the law you cited does not support your claim.
A person born out of the jurisdiction of the United States can only become a citizen by being naturalized.
I of course concede no such thing, and I've said so repeatedly.
You're acting like a jerk, because you are SO attached to the way you WANT things to be. Pretty much every legal expert out there believes Ted Cruz is eligible.
As I’ve said, I understand your opinion. I merely wanted you to acknowledge that the law you cited does not support your claim.
It DOES support the claim, because it says CLEARLY that such a person is a CITIZEN AT AND BY BIRTH. Pretty much every legal authority out there believes that being a citizen AT AND BY BIRTH is legally the same thing as being a "natural born citizen," and that it therefore makes such persons ELIGIBLE to be elected President. The US Supreme Court would most likely rule that that is the case.
So yes, you are correct that it doesn't state that such people are "natural born citizens." And NO, it doesn't matter that it doesn't use the magic wording.
What the law DOES say is probably sufficient for them to be declared so.
Furthermore, such a declaration by the Supreme Court would appear to be COMPLETELY IN LINE WITH THE ORIGINAL INTENT OF THE FRAMERS OF THE CONSTITUTION.
What we SHOULD be RAISING HELL OVER is the fact that this administration has illegally wiretapped reporters, illegally persecuted conservative groups, illegally stolen the medical records of millions of Americans, ordered people trying to rescue our diplomats to stand down, and all the rest of it.
THIS IS THE STUFF THAT MATTERS. AND IT MATTERS A GREAT DEAL.
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