Posted on 01/28/2016 12:59:06 PM PST by Kaslin
If you attend a presidential campaign event, you may come across someone wearing colonial garb or an Uncle Sam costume or body paint. But a Ted Cruz rally in Iowa last weekend featured something possibly unprecedented: guys dressed up as Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
This was not a random choice of attire. The guys in scarlet tunics were protesters, who passed out copies of Cruz's Canadian birth certificate to highlight the questions about his eligibility for the American presidency. The Constitution says the president must be "a natural born citizen" of the United States.
There is no dispute that the Texas senator was a U.S. citizen from birth, since his mother was an American. Donald Trump has raised questions, though, about whether Cruz, being born in the great state of Alberta, qualifies as "a natural born citizen."
Cruz dismisses the issue. "It's settled law," he says. "As a legal matter it's quite straightforward." In fact, it's never been settled, it's not straightforward and some experts don't agree with his reading.
The fact that it was Trump who raised the issue made it deeply suspect. But though it's unlikely that anything coming out of Trump's mouth is true, it's not impossible. And his claim that this is an unresolved question that could end up throwing the election into doubt happens to be correct.
When it comes to parsing the crucial phrase, Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe has noted, "No Supreme Court decision in the past two centuries has ever done so. In truth, the constitutional definition of a 'natural born citizen' is completely unsettled."
Tribe says that under an originalist interpretation of the Constitution -- the type Cruz champions -- he "wouldn't be eligible, because the legal principles that prevailed in the 1780s and '90s required that someone actually be born on U.S. soil to be a 'natural born citizen.'"
Cruz retorted that this is just what you'd expect from a "left-wing judicial activist." But Tribe, an eminent constitutional scholar, is not so predictable. He surprised gun-rights advocates years ago, before the landmark Supreme Court decisions on the Second Amendment, when he said it protects an individual right to own firearms.
Even if he's a judicial activist, the Supreme Court might agree with him. Cruz should know as much, because he has denounced the court for its "lawlessness," "imperial tendencies" and, yes, "judicial activism."
Nor is Tribe alone among experts. University of Chicago law professor Eric Posner says, "The ordinary meaning of the language suggests to me that one must be born on U.S. territory." Chapman University's Ronald Rotunda, co-author of a widely used constitutional law textbook, told me a couple of weeks ago he had no doubt that Cruz is eligible. But when he investigated the issue, he concluded that under the relevant Supreme Court precedents, "Cruz simply is not a natural born citizen."
Catholic University law professor Sarah Helene Duggin wrote in 2005, "Natural born citizenship is absolutely certain only for United States citizens born post-statehood in one of the fifty states, provided that they are not members of Native American tribes."
Steven Lubet, a Northwestern University law professor, spies another possible land mine. Cruz qualified for citizenship because his mother was an American citizen (unlike his father). But "under the law in effect in 1970, Cruz would only have acquired U.S. citizenship if his mother had been 'physically present' in the United States for ten years prior to his birth, including five years after she reached the age of fourteen," Lubet wrote in Salon.
That raises two questions: Did she live in this country for the required amount of time? And can the Cruz family prove it?
Whether the justices would take the case is another question. Unless some state election official bars him from the ballot on constitutional grounds or a rival candidate goes to court, it's unlikely a lawsuit would get a hearing. But if that happens, the Court may elect to resolve the matter -- and no one can be confident of the ultimate verdict.
Trump, believe it or not, is onto something. Cruz's candidacy suffers a potentially fatal defect. If Cruz is nominated or elected, he could be disqualified. When Republican voters cast their ballots, they have to ask themselves: Is he worth the risk?
I’ve taken it as an article of faith that Cruz was not improvidently recognized as a US citizen. Some US officer reviewed the evidence, and saw fit to issue at least a US passport. I have no need to second guess that finding.
Found it. She moved to England in 1960 (according to Teds book).
She and Wilson were divorced in 1963 in England (according to Wilson). London records obtained by McClatchy show that a Michael Wilson was born and died in 1966 - Wilson said it was not his, period. The baby died under a year old, soon after which mother Cruz moved to Texas and met father Cruz, and moved to Canada in 1967, through 1975.
15 years outside of the US with a short stint in Texas to meet a new husband.
I agree that someone saw something. It’s a thing though, to vet a candidate. Bet there are plenty of dems who will INSIST the docs are released. Cruz chose to cherry pick what docs he released, it will come up and we all know it.
Ah. It’s so simple.
So Maria from Mexico can have her son born in the United States so that he can become President of the United States?
Or an illegal Russian couple giving birth to their son Yuri can be President of the United States?
Right?
But I am not "conversant" on the relevant case law for that issue, and the case law is more complex for child born in the US than it is for a child born abroad.
And while the "anchor baby" (parents here illegally), and children born of foreigners here legally, are important issues, they are completely irrelevant in Cruz's case.
I will say, those babies have citizenship of their parents, so no matter what the US does, the babies are not born without a country.
The answer to my question is “yes”.
It’s well settled that those born on U.S. soil are “natural born citizens” by birth.
And if illegal aliens can give birth to the President, don’t you think two U.S. citizens temporarily abroad can give birth to the President, too?
It would be pretty bizarre to have it any other way, wouldn’t it?
Even Obama knew enough to forge an American birth certificate.
I really doubt that any of the founders even considered women in the military serving overseas. Diplomats may have brought family, but that was rare also and there weren't diplomats sent to every little country in the world.
Finally for the fools who keep asking about boarder jumpers who drop a kid in San Diego, both parents must be American citizens to be natural born. I never thought that Obama was eligible, and still do not.
2 American citizen parents, born in the US of A, that's what they taught me half a century ago in grade school and that is what it means.
I disagree, and for reasons previously expressed, refuse to debate here and now.
There is enough case law on citizens born in the US to make debate difficult. But the case law on citizens born abroad is a cinch. Well, for those who aren't deliberately obtuse, ignorant, or deliberately subversive.
There is consensus among academics that those born on American soil are natural born citizens, or jus soli, regardless of parental citizenship status.
In a 2008 article published by the Michigan Law Review, Lawrence Solum, Professor of Law at the University of Illinois, stated that “there is general agreement on the core of [the] meaning [of the Presidential Eligibility Clause]. Anyone born on American soil whose parents are citizens of the United States is a ‘natural born citizen’”. In April 2010, Solum republished the same article as an online draft, in which he clarified his original statement so that it would not be misunderstood as excluding the children of one citizen parent. In a footnote he explained, “based on my reading of the historical sources, there is no credible case that a person born on American soil with one American parent was clearly not a ‘natural born citizen’.” He further extended natural born citizenship to all cases of jus soli as the “conventional view”. Although Solum stated elsewhere that the two-citizen-parents arguments weren’t “crazy”, he believes “the much stronger argument suggests that if you were born on American soil that you would be considered a natural born citizen.”
Ronald Rotunda, Professor of Law at Chapman University, has remarked “There’s [sic] some people who say that both parents need to be citizens. That’s never been the law.”
Polly Price, Professor of Law at Emory University, has commented “It’s a little confusing, but most scholars think it’s a pretty unusual position for anyone to think the natural born citizen clause would exclude someone born in the U.S.”
Chin concurred with that assessment, stating, “there is agreement that ‘natural born citizens’ include those made citizens by birth under the 14th Amendment.”
Similarly, Eugene Volokh, Professor of Law at UCLA, found “quite persuasive” the reasoning employed by the Indiana Court of Appeals, which had concluded “that persons born within the borders of the United States are ‘natural born Citizens’ for Article II, Section 1 purposes, regardless of the citizenship of their parents”.
Daniel Tokaji, Professor of Law at Ohio State University, agrees the citizenship status of a U.S.-born candidate’s parents is irrelevant.
Yes, he could be disqualified.
But keep in mind that would only happen after he’s won the election, in the Electoral College. The House could either declare the EC vote invalid, or the Supreme Court could. The latter being a realistic possibility.
But even if that happens Constitutional mechanisms kick in. It does NOT mean that the Democrat gets inaugurated. It means that the House, voting by majority of state delegations, chooses the President. The GOP controls a majority of House delegations, so you’d still have a Republican as President.
But would you have a Conservative?
Is Cruz so important to the future of the Republic that we are willing to endure the nightmare such as you describe?
He should bow out gracefully and help Trump in the Senate.
Ted is cut from the same unqualified cloth as Buckwheat..this charade would be laughable, if it wasn’t so pathetic.
Does the Constitution specify that really loving America is an exception to the requirement of being a "natural born citizen"? No.
You got any more completely irrelevant points?
Until the courts rule whose definition of Natural Born Citizen the constitution meant, it's entirely possible Cruz is ineligible. He already has at least 2 lawsuits filed against him. And the democrats would love to take him down AFTER he wins the nomination, if that were possible.
I’m familiar with those references and the case law, I just refuse to discuss it. I don’t mind that you post it, or even that you post it to me. My silent treatment toward you is not meant to be rude.
So you’re saying that Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik’s baby can become President, but Ted Cruz can’t?
NBC is not the same as citizen.
I don’t know who those people are. If they aren’t natural born citizens they can’t become President.
That’s what the founding fathers put in the Constitution. That’s the rule of law.
Can you elaborate on the status of the citizen parent? Children of U.S. servicemen, business expats, academics, state dept. kids, etc. most certainly ARE American citizens from birth. What created an exception in this case? In the Obama chronicles, much was made of Stanley Dunham Obama's minority. Was the mother underage in the German case?
The years of residency requirement is (I presume) a statutory provision, as the Constitution most certainly does not discuss any such thing. Rules pertaining to dual citizenship are also statutory, not constitutional. Arguably, birthright citizenship for "Maria from Tijuana's" anchor baby could also be changed by Act of Congress, although there would be an argument about that.
My point is, the Constitution does not define natural born citizen. We can peer into penumbras and emanations and accede to judges making something up out of thin air, or we can adopt the simple and robust standard that "natural born" equals "citizen from birth" under the laws that obtain at the time.
They were the terrorists who shot up San Bernardino, the mother of which was on a fiance visa from Saudi Arabia. Their baby was born on U.S. soil.
So that baby can become President, but Cruz can’t?
Great minds think alike.
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