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?
There's been a LOT of illegals but I don't think that many.
No. The qualifications for VP are identical—since his principal function is to succeed to the Presidency if necessary.
Interesting how the lies abound. Example: Trump was first to raise the issue.
Totally false. It has been widely discussed on the internet and face-to-face among activists since before Cruz announced.
Trump was not the first to raise the issue of immigration. It was hot #1 topic on FR and most everywhere when Trump was still pro-open borders.
Trump was not the first to be anti-Muslim.
And Trump was not the first to be a boastful braggart.
A citizen from birth IS a natural-born citizen. Those two terms are synonymous. Anyone saying otherwise is a lying demagogue. And Cruz is natural-born as the original Constitution writers intended. Anyone who would seek to deny him his constitutional right to run for office is NOT a conservative, they are spitting on the Constitution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural-born-citizen_clause
The use of the phrase “natural born” was not without precedent. Statutes in England prior to American independence used the phrase “natural born subject”. For example, the British Foreign Protestants Naturalization Act 1708:[10][11]
The children of all natural born subjects born out of the ligeance [i.e. out of England] of Her Majesty Her Heirs and Successors shall be deemed and adjudged to be natural born subjects of this Kingdom to all intents, constructions, and purposes whatsoever.
Considering the history of the constitutional qualifications provision, the common use and meaning of the phrase “natural-born subject” in England and in the Colonies in the 1700s, the clause’s apparent intent, the subsequent action of the first Congress in enacting the Naturalization Act of 1790 (expressly defining the term “natural born citizen” to include a person born abroad to parents who are United States citizens), as well as subsequent Supreme Court dicta, it appears that the most logical inferences would indicate that the phrase “natural born Citizen” would mean a person who is entitled to U.S. citizenship “at birth” or “by birth”.[68]
Nice way to muddy the waters. IIRC, Raphael was a CUBAN citizen.
Chester Alan Arthur’s father wasn’t American.
There have been numerous Freepers that claimed that Obama does not qualify for the presidency because he was born in Kenya, with an American mother.
If that is so, then Ted Cruz would not qualify.
The GOP controls a majority of House delegations, so you’d still have a Republican as President.
But would you have a Conservative?
888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888
You’d have a fat grinning JEB.
First, this question would probably never have been asked if the birthers hadn’t taken on Obama. And still, it probably wouldn’t have been asked if Trump hadn’t decided he had to go negative.
When the question was brought up about Obama it was clear that Obama was anti-American. He gets mad when you say he’s not a patriot but if you need to fundamentally transform something it’s pretty clear you don’t love it.
Preacher: Will you take this woman?
Man: After I fundamentally transform her, yes.
Preacher: Get this nut out of my church!
Ted Cruz is not anti-American, whether you think he should be President or not.
For my money, I think if you believe Cruz should be President you should vote for him and let the chips fall where they may. Trying to protect your vote against as crazy a political scene as America has become is a bigger losing game than trying to elect a “liberal Republican” to keep the center happy.
If a Cruz wins brings a challenge, I say “Bring it.”
Good analysis. Even if the claims against Cruz are groundless, they could be a basis for blackmail.
You have come up with a more rational and convincing answer than Cruz ever has.
If Cruz insists on continuing simply giving out the gratuitous assertion that the matter is “settled law,” then he deserves to lose.
Beyond the nbc question, if an expatriate passes her old US citizenship down to her kids, then do those kids pass that US citizenship to their kids as well? If that’s the case then the descendants will have US citizenship a hundred generations from now even if no one in the family has stepped foot into the US for a thousand years. It’s only because people don’t generally migrate out of the US that that absurdity hasn’t been considered.
Someone should ask Cruz what he thinks about that. Or Levin.
Since Cruz has not released his CRBA, we do not know if HE applied, his mother applied, or if anyone applied. We do not know for certain IF or WHEN Ted Cruz attained his US citizenship via a legal act or process at the US consulate in Canada.
Then lets not forget Cruzs own remarks after his Canadian birth was first uncovered;
“As you know, I was born in Canada. My mother was a U.S. citizen at the time of my birth. She was a U.S. citizen from birth so, under U.S. law, I’m an American citizen by birth.” “Beyond that,” he added, “I will leave the legal consequences of those facts to others to worry about.”
Legal consequences. Hummmmm.
He didn’t have to go through the naturalization process to be a citizen, so therefore he is natural born. Just because SCOTUS hasn’t made any decisions doesn’t mean it is unsettled. The WWI registration cards didn’t ask if you were a citizen, it asked if you were natural born, naturalized or an alien.
“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,”
Yes for Cruz’s mother.
No for Obama’s mother.
This is the difference.
A publication I found from the department of justice published less than 30 years ago says that is you want to be president, YOU HAVE TO BE BORN IN THE UNITED STATES.
James Madison, a primary author of the Constitution accepted French citizenship.
The first U.S. President to be a natural born citizen was Martin Van Buren in 1837.
There were some pretty decent presidents before Van Buren (Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, John Quincy Adams, and Jackson) who were born as British subjects.
Your comment explains why the senator is lagging in 97% of polls. All talk and no action. Great debates, with no accomplishments. Lots of speeches but not a single law passed which advances conservative agenda. 99 colleagues in senate, but after 3+ years of working together, not a single endorsement!
No one has proven that Obama was born outside of the U.S., so none of the age or residence requirements apply to his mother.
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