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?
In the Thomas case, the child was not a citizen because the US citizen father did not meet the residency requirement recited in the relevant Act of Congress, and the offshore military base is not in the US. It was the ather who was a US citizen, unlike Obama where the mother was the US citizen.
-- or we can adopt the simple and robust standard that "natural born" equals "citizen from birth" under the laws that obtain at the time. --
That is not the rule of law reflected in the cases.
Not in my opinion. If their parents were not U.S. Citizens or they weren’t born in the U.S. THen I don’t think they are “Natural Born Citizens” as required by the constitution.
That means Rubio isn’t eligible because neither of his parents were citizens when he was born here.
And Cruz isn’t eligible because his father wasn’t a citizen and he was born in Canada.
And socialist Roger Calero who ran in 2004 and 2008 isn’t eligible. He wasn’t even a citizen, but was here on a green card. But he got on the ballots in several states, because there is no process to check eligibility. Even if they did, there is disagreement about what the founding fathers meant when they said Natural Born Citizen.
Not in my opinion. If their parents were not U.S. Citizens or they weren’t born in the U.S. THen I don’t think they are “Natural Born Citizens” as required by the constitution.
That means Rubio isn’t eligible because neither of his parents were citizens when he was born here.
And Cruz isn’t eligible because his father wasn’t a citizen and he was born in Canada.
And socialist Roger Calero who ran in 2004 and 2008 isn’t eligible. He wasn’t even a citizen, but was here on a green card. But he got on the ballots in several states, because there is no process to check eligibility. Even if they did, there is disagreement about what the founding fathers meant when they said Natural Born Citizen.
“Trump, believe it or not, is onto something”
Trump, believe it or not is just engaging in retarded, ridiculous attacks on someone he can’t beat on the issues.
Yeah, but how did he get birth announcements in the August, 1961 Honolulu newspapers when he was 10 days old? That’s the amazing thing.
Would anyone drafting the rules today write the law as to create that outcome? No.
Would someone today argue that is the current state of our law? Yes, because that IS the current state of our law. The relevant terms were laid down in 1787 and 1866 and explicated by the Supreme Court in 1898 -- at a time when the "anchor babies" concept was completely outside purview and before the time when the U.S. maintained a large, constant military presence outside the U.S.
Yes, the current status doesn't make much sense due to changing conditions, and it makes having a coherent immigration policy most difficult.
The answer is "amendment."
“However, carry on, this should kill off what’s left of the tourist industry.”
No one commenting on FR is likely to have any say in the matter whatsoever, it is however likely to wind up for some court to decide and there is no telling which way that court may rule. It mainly depends on just what court might get a shot at it. The reality is that Cruz is certainly not a natural born citizen according to the intent of the founders and the accepted definition at the time the constitution was written. On the other hand the only judges I could name off the top of my head who really care what the founders intended would be Thomas and Scalia. Anyone who thinks I am shilling for Trump would be sorely mistaken, I don’t have great confidence in anyone who is running but I am leaning more and more toward Cruz, Trump does scare me in many ways and I can’t name anyone else who is in the race who is worth going the mile and a half from here to the polling place.
“Should we consider them all Natural Born Citizens?”
No, we certainly should not.
The twelfth amendment to the constitution says that no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of president shall be eligible to the office of vice president so no, Cruz could not be elected VP without possible legal questions.
I am aware of no scholarly article published in the past 75 years that even challenges that view. And many simply term the question "well-settled."
Plus, the judiciary (3rd, 4th, 7th and 10th Circuits), plus a host of state courts (e.g., Indiana Ct. of Appeals) have affirmed it.
Equally so, it's undisputed that someone born an alien who later naturalizes is not a natural born citizen.
Scholars who describe the meaning of NBC as "unsettled" are focusing on these middle cases like persons born to citizens abroad (G. Romney, McCain, Cruz) or persons born in U.S. territories, commonwealths or protectorates (e.g., the colloquy between Cong. Serrano and Justice Thomas ("we're evading it") about citizens born in Puerto Rico).
You forgot about the long form Hawaii birth certificate?
I think that’s a reasonable interpretation of that term, and if I were a betting man, I might even bet that’s how the court would come down. But the reality is that the courts have shown no interest in touching it period, preferring to let it be settled as a “political question” by the voters. As long as that’s the case, then we are all basically acting as SCOTUS justices as it relates to this particular provision and can thus come to our own conclusions as to what we think it meant or should mean. For me, I think it meant no divided loyalties from birth, and that would yes exclude dual citizens, but it would not exclude those born abroad to two U.S. citizens, particular if they were there in some capacity related to U.S. government service.
Raphael did naturalize as a Canadian citizenship, don’t quite remember if that happened before or after Ted’s birth.
That article’s long since been discredited.
Well, Raphael is irrelevant, anyway.
Ted Cruz was a U.S. citizen at birth. There is a broad consensus that this is the meaning of “natural born.” A smaller number of people hold that “natural born” means specifically A) born on U.S. soil, or B) born of two citizen parents, or even BOTH A and B.
The Baby-Killing Party, having foisted an ILLEGAL ALIEN in the White House on us for eight years, will have no shame about challenging Cruz, who nobody doubts has been a U.S. citizen from birth.
I hope you are just making a joke about the crudely-forged, photoshopped similacrum of a “birth certificate,” the one that says Barack Obama, Sr.’s “race” is “African.” The one bearing the typefaces of half-a-dozen different typewriters? The one with the characters with different bit-depths? The one with the name of the country “Kenya” on it—which didn’t exist yet?
There is no such “office” as “President-Elect.” So what was he doing with an “office”?
There is, also, no evidence that Obama was born in the U.S.
I don’t think there’s a very broad consensus around anything on this. I think before this cycle, the popular understanding was that natural born meant born in the U.S. The McCain case was the first to really challenge that, and his buddies in the Senate backed him up, but it was a pretty unique exception.
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