Pennsylvania judge hears Ted Cruz 'birther' challenge

The Allentown Morning Call ^ | March 10, 2016 | Steve Esack

[2ndDivisionVet]

HARRISBURG -- Carmon Elliott is not a lawyer. But he got to play one Thursday in state court when he tried to convince a judge that Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz is really a Canadian who has no constitutional right to be a candidate for U.S. president.

Senior Judge Dan Pellegrini of Commonwealth Court was as impressed with Elliott's oral arguments as he was his Uncle Sam tie.

"By the way, I like your tie," said Pellegrini, who's known for his wit as well as his probing legal questions.

Some judges don't like hearing election petition cases argued by pro se litigants because they can be unprepared and disruptive to the political process, Pellegrini said. Not so in Elliott's case.

"I have to compliment you," Pellegrini said in court. "You represented yourself well today."

Elliott, a retiree who lives in Pittsburgh and is a Republican with a self-professed affinity for the U.S. Constitution, went up against Robert N. Feltoon, a lawyer from the Philadelphia firm Conrad O'Brien.

Feltoon argued that Elliott's petition should be dismissed. The U.S. Supreme Court has never specifically ruled on whether a person born outside the United States as Cruz was can run for president, he argued. It is a decision, Feltoon said, that should be made by Congress and the Electoral College, which ultimately elects the president.

Elliott's petition was one of several "birther" lawsuits filed against Cruz after GOP front-runner Donald Trump openly questioned whether the Texas senator can serve as president.

An Illinois judge tossed one lawsuit last week....

[John Valentine]

Absent an Act of Congress, both Bellei and Cruz would be aliens.

Not so. I make no assertion as to Bellei, but as to Cruz, he was most definitely a US Citizen at birth and not merely because of some statute. He was a citizen at birth because his citizenship derived naturally from the circumstances of his birth so that there was and is a natural and abiding connection between the him and the society and nation into which he or she is born. That's it, like it or not, argue till the cows come home and on into the night, you won't change a thing. Ted Cruz is a US natural born citizen and no court or body of any kind with jurisdiction over the matter will ever rule differently, because this is the law.

[Cboldt]

-- I make no assertion as to Bellei, but as to Cruz, he was most definitely a US Citizen at birth and not merely because of some statute. --

It's total nonsense to reach no conclusion as to Bellei, and simultaneously make one as to Cruz. Both were born of US citizen mothers, alien fathers, and born abroad. If Cruz is a citizen without resort to a statute, then so was Bellei. But that isn't the case, and you know it.

You are just making things up. SCOTUS has labeled persons born abroad to one citizen parent as "naturalized." There are zero precedents to the contrary, and thousands of citizenship cases that apply the rule of law stated in Bellei, WKA, Miller v. Albright, etc. Courts rule thusly on a regular basis. That they don;t take a case when the subject is a presidential candidate is fecklessness on the part of the court system.

[John Valentine]

The only reason I make no statement about Bellei is that I don’t recall the facts of the case right now, and I am not particularly interested in looking them up in any case. And sure, the courts might have got it wrong. They often do.

Also, I am not particularly concerned with what some court or other has said in their dicta. It’s meaningless verbiage. I am far more interested in what the US Code says, and it defines naturalization as a process that takes place AFTER birth, never at birth or before. Any US Citizen at birth is by definition NOT naturalized.

You are so wrong about all this, that I don’t think it possible to get you turned around. Maybe you will come to it on your own, as I did, or maybe you will live on in delusion for your entire life.

Either way, I’m OK with it. No sweat off my brow.

[Cboldt]

-- I am not particularly concerned with what some court or other has said in their dicta. It's meaningless verbiage. I am far more interested in what the US Code says ... --

The Bellei case construes the same section of code that applies to Cruz, with an intervening amendment or two that aren't relevant.

The finding that Bellei is naturalized cannot be dicta. The case depends on Bellei being naturalized in the first place.

Bellei lost his citizenship. If he hadn't lost his citizenship, the case would not exist. If Bellei was a natural born citizen, Congress could not have involuntarily stripped him (and all others similarly situated) of their citizenship.

-- You are so wrong about all this, that I don't think it possible to get you turned around. --

I'm open to reasoned persuasion, but all you have is gibberish and baloney, and a willingness to mislead others with it.