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?
Trumps a proven liar on this. He said he had the best lawyers all over this and Cruz is legally ok. Then, when Cruz was winning Iowa trump lied and even laughed when Cruz caught him in the lie at the debate. There are idiots around here spreading lies with the help of leftist lawyers, after trump was catch in his lie. These people are such idol worshippers of trump we might have to put set up a sucide prevention thread if trump loses.
But would you have a Conservative?
Probably not, but at present the American voter largely appears willing to settle for a middle of the roader rather to continue with the hollow promises of an ineffective policial party. Perhaps the greatest danger is we could end up with a GOPe operative.
The only value would seem to be that the nation would settle the NBC issue and hand the one-worlders a defeat.
That American mother has to be in the Guiness book of World records! I heard that women normally have only about 4-500 eggs.
Possibly because all the birther suits which made it through the courts were awarded a verdict disqualifying Obama can act as precedent. Oh wait...
Cleared up how?
VP-elect, yes.
The power structure in DC will be more then willing interpret the law to their benefit... so either Cruz becomes their castrated eunuch or he's out
The Dems will be salivating for this as payback for Obama birther...and Gore Bush 2000
The GOPe will rollover as Cruz is not there guy ..GOPe is more interested in protecting its relationship with the Dems.. mutually picking the American peoples pockets
we've already seen the Roberts Supreme Court is willing stretch twill to do the DC power structures bidding with the rewrite of Obamacare and Gay marriage... so again Cruz gets no love
they just need to be able to justify it and he's gone....
unless he's willing to be the DC Dem/GOPe elites bitch
The same forces that will always look “the other way” on Obama or Clinton ....will always “see a way” if they want to.... ...we all know that... .. can you say Scooter Libby compared to Hillary Clinton or Sandy Burglar?
look what just happened with a Planned Parenthood case in Texas.... talk about flipping the facts to get what that want...
.
thats who we are playing against... any conservative know this and its silly to think otherwise
Moot question. At this point the only person who can beat Cruz for the nomination would be Trump. And Trump can't be expected to select someone he doesn't think is qualified for the office.
And they'll lose.
Everyone sues everybody. It's the way of the world.
I’m sure the Founders, when crafting the Constitution, said “yeah, born in Canada to a Cuban Father is OK with us”.
Puh-leeze....
One must be born on US ‘soil’ of two citizen parents. Nobody is ever going to produce a ‘born in the USA’ birth certificate for Cruz. Cruz is a naturalized citizen, NOT eligible to hold the office of president. And Cruz knows it!!
He already cleared the question up”
don’t you think there should be a ah... little more unbiased decision ???
All this talk about Ted Cruz being disqualified.... Even here..
Pretty crazy considering the Democrats have a candidate who we all KNOW has committed felony after felony and in a normal world, would be under indictment - disqualifying her from running.
... But let’s keep on clobbering Ted... THATS the REAL crime, isn’t it now????
I gotta go puke now.
At the time of election (November 2016) ONLY the Electoral College has standing before the court to challenge his qualifications.
At the time of inauguration (January 20, 2017), ONLY the House of Representatives has standing before the court to challenge his qualifications.
Next!
Exactly!
300 billion people in America and the frontrunners are a blowhard billionaire and an unqualified Senator. The only other one I would trust is Santorum but he ain’t going anywhere. So we might be stuck with Trump as president. The People don’t have the power in this country.
Exactly!
If Cruz cannot come up with a better answer than that, IS he capable of doing the job?
And I notice that Mark Levin is giving the same answer to questions about Cruz as he always gave to callers who raised the question of Soetoro's citizenship: He yells at them and hangs up.
Cruz and Levin are convincing me that Cruz is not qualified.
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