Posted on 02/19/2016 6:36:53 AM PST by Enlightened1
Here is what the Constitution says about who can be president:
No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
The problem is the Constitution doesn't define "natural born Citizen." Neither does any current law. And no one has ever brought a court case to decisively settle the question as a matter of US law.
There are three ways someone can be a US citizen. He can be born in the US (regardless of who his parents are). He can be born outside the US to at least one US citizen parent, as long as certain criteria are met (those criteria are set by federal law and have been changed over time). Or he can immigrate here and then successfully apply for citizenship, a process called naturalization.
Everyone agrees that the first category of people are natural-born citizens. Everyone agrees that the third category of people are not natural-born citizens (regardless of how unfair it might be that immigrants can't be president). But Ted Cruz is in the middle category, and this is where the meaning of "natural born" starts to get fuzzy.
(Excerpt) Read more at vox.com ...
Name one!
Zatso? Barack Husein Obama Senior was a British subject.
He never became a US citizen, indeed, he never even applied to be one.
He was a British subject as Kenya was part of the British Empire.
The universe is full of silly notions, but the courts have already made clear that they don’t care about this issue. Judges, especially the liberal ones, don’t think this clause applies anymore. Even strict original intent crowd believe that this clause is present in order to prevent a subject of the King of England becoming President. This issue is moot.
See 14th amendment and Art IV, Sec. 2
I agree. I’d rather it be settled now.
Nor do I, that being said, I think he'd be a good president.
Certainly better than the current occupier!
[So he’s just petty and butthurt? Here I was thinking he was above all of that. Silly me.]
No, I would say he’s cunning and calculated.
He sees a better opportunity for a cabinet post in a Trump admin that a Cruz one.
Plus, payback’s a b**ch.
One side plays to win.
The other?
Not so much...
It's ridiculous to say he didn't know for 40 years.
Frankly, the reason she doesn’t discuss Vattel is because Vattel is, ultimately, irrelevant to the discussion. I keep seeing people throw Vattel’s name around, but they miss the point that Vattel himself later said that the natural law definition of “natural born” can be, and is, overriden whenever a nation enacts some form of positive law (which would include, for purposes of this discussion, English common law) to that effect. Because the Framers intended the common law to be controlling for what an NBC is, Vattel’s “natural law” definition is nothing more than an historical curiosity.
Check my posting history. I think Cruz has cost himself by hiring Roe for dirty tricks in his campaign: it undercut his "responsible, clean, soft-spoken, gentlemanly" image: and once the seed of doubt has been sowed, since the conservatives have been lied to *so* often...
There should have been a way for Cruz, should he have wished to go that way, to have done it either in a "hands-off" manner; *OR*, to have fully owned it, saying, "it's payback time for...' (long list here beginning with Bork.)
But he didn't.
That being said, I will still work HARD for Cruz in the general should he secure the nomination.
Agreed! As I’ve been saying, Cruz would not have jumped into this race if he didn’t think he could clear this hurdle, and it isn’t that high of a hurdle.
This is about immigration and does not alter the qualifications for president. If it did, it would have said so.
Actually its not fuzzy. At the time the Constitution was written the second example was considered natural born based on English custom.
Ditto, if anyone should be questioned it’s the smarmy used car salesman Rubio.
Yes, but the 14th in no way can redefine the original meaning of the phrase when it the Constitution was ratified, and of course Congress has no authority to arbitrarily assign a meaning either, even if the Supreme Court says they can. To “fix” this a simple amendment striking the language entirely is needed.
That is exactly what we were taught in school (many years ago but closer in time to the writing of the constitution than we are now.)
So, John McCain wasn’t eligible either (born in Panama)? I don’t see the Cruz disparagers here say anything about that.
Yup.
It would appear that there are TWO (2) fully signed and notarized versions of the DNC presidential certification that was sent out to the 50 states at the conclusion of the Democratic Convention in Colorado. One includes a ‘legally qualified’ statement, while the other version, sent out to the 50 states, omits it. This shouldn’t bode well for Nancy Pelosi, who signed both versions. Can you say, “misprision of treason?†Sourec here
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