Posted on 01/21/2016 5:31:08 AM PST by VitacoreVision
After many years of debate, the meaning of "natural born citizen" remains unsettled.
During last week's Republican presidential debate, Ted Cruz said it's "really quite clear" he is eligible to run for president even though he was born in Canada, because his mother was a U.S. citizen. His rival Donald Trump insisted "there is a serious question" as to whether Cruz qualifies as "a natural born citizen," one of the constitutional requirements for the presidency.
Here is a sentence I never thought I'd type: Donald Trump is right. Cruz describes a consensus that does not exist.
The Texas senator is not alone in doing that. In a Harvard Law Review essay published last March, Neal Katyal and Paul Clement-solicitors general under Barack Obama and George W. Bush, respectively-say "there is no question that Senator Cruz has been a citizen from birth and is thus a 'natural born Citizen' within the meaning of the Constitution." They call claims to the contrary "specious" and "spurious."
No doubt Mary Brigid McManamon, a legal historian at Delaware Law School, would object to those adjectives. In a Washington Post op-ed piece published last week, she says it's "clear and unambiguous," based on British common law during the Founding era, that Cruz is not a "natural born citizen."
As Catholic University law professor Sarah Helen Duggin and Maryland lawyer Mary Beth Collins show in a 2005 Boston University Law Review article, these dueling perspectives are the latest installment of a long-running scholarly debate about the meaning of "natural born citizen." Contrary to Cruz, Katyal, Clement, and McManamon, Duggin and Collins view the phrase as "opaque" and dangerously "ambiguous" (as well as outdated, unfair, and antidemocratic), arguing that it should be excised by amendment.
Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe, whom Trump likes to cite, has taken both sides in this debate. In 2008 Tribe and former Solicitor General Ted Olson coauthored a memo that said John McCain, the GOP nominee that year, was eligible for the presidency even though he was born in the Panama Canal Zone.
Since the Constitution does not define "natural born citizen," Tribe and Olson wrote, to illuminate the term's meaning we must look to the context in which it is used, legislation enacted by the First Congress, and "the common law at the time of the Founding." They said "these sources all confirm that the phrase 'natural born' includes both birth abroad to parents who were citizens, and birth within a nation's territory and allegiance."
Writing in The Boston Globe last week, by contrast, Tribe said "the constitutional definition of a 'natural born citizen' is completely unsettled." He added that based on the originalist approach Cruz favors, he "ironically wouldn't be eligible, because the legal principles that prevailed in the 1780s and '90s required that someone actually be born on US soil to be a 'natural born' citizen." Fordham law professor Thomas Lee makes a similar argument in the Los Angeles Times.
Satisfying as it may be for Cruz's opponents to see him hoist by his own interpretive petard, this way of framing the issue is misleading, because the debate about the meaning of "natural born citizen" is mainly about what the original understanding was, as opposed to whether the original understanding should prevail. Originalists such as Georgetown law professor Randy Barnett and University of San Diego law professor Michael Ramsey argue that their approach favors Cruz.
Another originalist, Independence Institute senior fellow Rob Natelson, who describes himself as an "admirer of Senator Cruz," is not so sure. "Although Senator Cruz's belief that he is natural born may ultimately be vindicated," Natelson writes on The Originalism Blog, "the case against him is very respectable."
Case Western law professor Jonathan Adler, who initially said "there is no question about Ted Cruz's constitutional eligibility to be elected president," later conceded he "may have been too quick to suggest that this issue is completely settled." I was similarly chastened to realize it's not safe to assume everything Donald Trump says is a lie.
This born in Canada mess is hurting Cruz in NC.
Maybe, just maybe, all of this bickering over and investigation into Cruz’s citizenship will lead to evidence of Obama’s lack of it.
Fyi
It is a cheap campaign trick. Donnie is the one losing cred. Good grief.
We can hope. WHERE is Cruz’s CRBA? And WHY is he stonewalling? It just looks bad, & the longer it goes on, the worse he looks.
Sigh.
This issue is going to kill Cruz, and destroy his chance of being VP.
Wow, demanding that we follow our Constitution as written is now a “cheap campaign trick”.
Obama lied about his birthplace AND loyalty. Cruz didn’t. That’s tge big difference
It is disgusting to watch this
Obama will never be caught. Because his supporters also lie their way through life.
Laws and the constitution are pesky things.
If Cruz is eligible to run for president, then how many other people around the world (who don’t even live here) are also eligible???
Think about that one for a moment.
If you want to know why the founders but the natural born citizen (NBC) clause into our constitution, look no further than the current administration. We would be wise to follow our constitution, and Cruz is not a natural born citizen. In fact up until 1934 Cruz would have even been considered a citizen of the USA. How can someone naturalized by a 1934 law be a NBC. It is a absurd proposition.
The problem isn’t lack of citizenship. The problem is dual citizenship.
The issue is over the application of natural born Citizen.
The article shows a crack in the dam of grossly misleading public discourse. The question isn't unsettled at all. It is settled very clearly, and it is settled (other than saying it applies to Cruz) that all persons born abroad are naturalized citizens.
I share your fantasy (and think it might turn into reality) that Obama is to be seen as ineligible. The first president to be improvidently seated by Congress. It can happen. I pray to God that it does happen. This country is full of good people who deserve to be told the truth, and to be lead by honest people, not dishonest ones.
I don’t think he is right.
But I am convinced some Liberal judge will decide he IS right if Cruz is elected.
This born in Canada mess is hurting Cruz in NC.
*************
Just curious where or what are you hearing? At some point it has to be addressed
in some form or fashion if it gets to be a common discussion among voters.
Case Western law professor Jonathan Adler, who initially said "there is no question about Ted Cruz's constitutional eligibility to be elected president," later conceded he "may have been too quick to suggest that this issue is completely settled."This is significant.
I think unwinding a big lie works better, if worked slowly. I bet that a week or a month or three months from now, the public will be of a clear mind that born abroad cannot be NBC.
The fact of the matter is that he is constitutionally disqualified. It isn't the publicity or uncertainty that gets him (although it does erode his votes), it is the law that gets him for certain.
Don’t you know that our presidential elections now have absolutely nothing to do with a candidates morals, beliefs, convictions, policies, historical record and abilities.
It is entirely dependent on a candidates popularity, just like high school elections. Trump is a tv star, a WWF star, talks smack. Got it?
That depends on how awake the public becomes. It's possible that the public will view him as a usurper. Time will tell.
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