Posted on 04/22/2016 10:14:11 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
A Utah lawyer has appealed a lawsuit to the U.S. Supreme Court, alleging Republican presidential candidate Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is not a "natural born citizen" and therefore ineligible to become president.
Legal scholars say there is virtually no chance the high court will consider the appeal, partly because they do not want to encourage a wave of similar suits.
Cruz has faced questions about his eligibility to become president from his chief rival, Donald Trump. Cruz was born in Canada, though his mother is a U.S. citizen.
The U.S. Constitution sets only a few standards for presidential eligibility. Candidates must be 35, have lived at least 14 years in the country and be a "natural born citizen."
To some, legal vagaries exist surrounding the constitutional language. Congress has never passed a law explicitly defining the term "natural born citizen" and the nation's founding document does not specify what qualifications someone must have.
For centuries, the courts have fallen back to the British common law explanation, that a "natural born citizen" is anyone who is granted citizenship at birth and, therefore, does not have to undergo any naturalization process later in life. Traditionally, that has included anyone born on American soil and the children of American citizens born abroad.
But that definition has generally not been tested in courts because federal judges are first bound to consider whether a plaintiff has standing to bring a lawsuit. To establish standing, someone making allegations has to pass the threshold they have been personally injured in some way.
(Excerpt) Read more at upi.com ...
Re slow motion train wreck. Think u are exactly right... and it’s hapoening even faster than many of the Great Unwashed dem libs think
Have a nice day.
The general rule that the applies to constitutional issues is that an Amendment only changes those aspects which are directly addressed by the amendment. Nothing gets changed by accident or inadvertently.
For Example, the 14th amendment granted citizenship to Slaves and the Children of Slaves who were born within the jurisdiction of the United States. It cannot be regarded as having overturned the "natural born citizen" requirement of Article II, because the Amendment did not specifically address that aspect of constitutional law.
Does that not conflict with the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment?
Did women being denied the vote conflict with the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment? We don't even have to wonder about this, because the Supreme Court explicitly ruled in Minor V Happersett that it did not. (Unanimous decision.)
Denying women the right to vote was *NOT* a conflict with the 14th amendment. Therefore it would seem reasonable to conclude that denying them the ability to pass on citizenship was also *NOT* a conflict with the 14th's equal protection clause.
RE:
1) The general rule that the applies to constitutional issues is that an Amendment only changes those aspects which are directly addressed by the amendment. Nothing gets changed by accident or inadvertently.
2) Did women being denied the vote conflict with the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment? We don’t even have to wonder about this, because the Supreme Court explicitly ruled in Minor V Happersett that it did not.
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I have a problem with that and so will many decent Americans of both liberal and conservative leanings.
If this is the case, then it binds us into agreeing that the Dredd Scott decision was in keeping with the original intent of the framers and entirely compatible with the declaration of independence’s statement saying “All Men are created equal”.
Although Chief Justice Taney hoped that his ruling on Dredd Scott would finally settle the slavery question, the decision immediately spurred vehement dissent from anti-slavery elements in the North, especially Republicans.
Many contemporary lawyers, and most modern legal scholars, consider the ruling regarding slavery in the territories to be dictum, not binding precedent.
I also have the same objection to Minor V Happersett.
The Nineteenth Amendment, which became a part of the Constitution in 1920, effectively overruled Minor v. Happersett by prohibiting discrimination in voting rights based on gender. But it cannot be said that prior to the 19th amendment, the SCOTUS decision on Minor v Happersett was the right decision.
If we gave the SCOTUS the final say on everything, then we might as well accept and be resigned to Anthony Kennedy’s decision on gay marriage or Blackmunn’s decision on abortion rights.
With these in mind, it can be argued that the key to this is the concept of “allegiance”-whether the individual has been born with allegiance to the king, or not.
Individuals born with allegiance to the sovereign are “natural-born” subjects; those lacking such allegiance are not. It is not a question merely of being born within the geographic confines of the country. James Madison known as the father of the Constitution,” stated, “It is an established maxim that birth is a criterion of allegiance. [And] place is the most certain criterion; it is what applies in the United States.” ..
However I don’t think he is not suggesting that it is the only criterion, as he states unequivocally that the that the “established maxim” is that the ultimate criterion is “allegiance,” of which the place of birth is but one (albeit “certain”) criterion. “established maxim” is that the ultimate criterion is “allegiance,” of which the place of birth is but one (albeit “certain”) criterion.
The framers, more than anything else, were concerned with a person’s “allegiance”. They do not want a person with dual allegiance to the King/Queen of England and the United States of America.
Article I, section eight gives Congress the authority to “establish a uniform rule of Naturalization,” and thus identify, by statute, those who must to go through a naturalization process to obtain U.S. citizenship.
Those citizens who do not need to go through the naturalization process are “natural born” citizens. As former Solicitors General Neil Katyal and Paul Clement have recently noted in the Harvard Law Review Forum,
See here:
http://harvardlawreview.org/2015/03/on-the-meaning-of-natural-born-citizen/
All the sources routinely used to interpret the Constitution confirm that the phrase “natural born Citizen” has a specific meaning: namely, someone who was a U.S. citizen at birth with no need to go through a naturalization proceeding at some later time. And Congress has made equally clear from the time of the framing of the Constitution to the current day that, subject to certain residency requirements on the parents, someone born to a U.S. citizen parent generally becomes a U.S. citizen without regard to whether the birth takes place in Canada, the Canal Zone, or the continental United States. . . .
The Supreme Court has long recognized that two particularly useful sources in understanding constitutional terms are British common law and enactments of the First Congress. Both confirm that the original meaning of the phrase “natural born Citizen” includes persons born abroad who are citizens from birth based on the citizenship of a parent.
i eagerly welcome a Supreme Court challenge to take on the Ted Cruz case. The available evidence suggests that if/when the Court ultimately must grapple with it, the evidence points strongly in Cruz’s favor.
I don't see how the Supreme Court can ever be forced to measure or decide upon the qualifications of a particular candidate. The Court could very simply rule that whether or not any particular person is a "natural born citizen" or whether or not any particular person meets the residency or other requirements are questions committed to the electors who are constitutionally authorized to choose a president. Why would the Court even want to get involved in measuring the qualifications of any particular candidate? What risk is there that the voters or their electors are ever going to choose a candidate who lacks a very solid connection with this country?
What is the real danger of allowing electors to continue to select our presidents? In the real world, these issues are raised only by persons who dislike a particular candidate for reasons having nothing to do with the convoluted, long-winded and very dubious arguments that they invent. There has never been any possibility that electors would choose some foreign prince to serve as president.
It would be foolish for the Supreme Court to get involved in this political thicket.
And we know they didn't....How?
He did just revive the issue. Did he not?
RE: I don’t see how the Supreme Court can ever be forced to measure or decide upon the qualifications of a particular candidate.
It would simply be a narrow ruling on ONE PARTICULAR ISSUE.
Do the circumstances behind Ted Cruz’s birth meet the criteria of being a “Natural Born Citizen” as set forth in Section 1 of Article Two of the United States Constitution.
“It also was never meant to be all encompassing, permitting laws and courts to rule on matters that it did not specifically address such as this one.
You aren’t making sense. The requirement to be President is an age of at least 35 years. Who do you think will enforce that requirement?”
I am making sense, and you are using a straw man argument in your statement above. The FACT is that the Constitution does not specifically define the term NBC. On that point everyone agrees except those with closed minds. The legal definition of NBC HAS changed without amendment to the Constitution since the 1700’s. Once again, plain fact that most everyone can observe, with said exception. The current,working definition is that if either mother OR father meets the definition of US citizen then the child is born a US citizen no matter where the birth occurs (in addition to those children born on US soil without regard to parents status). I am one of those that believe that the citizenship rule should be changed so that the latter of those two situations does NOT automatically produce a citizen at birth unless either parent is a US citizen. Is it your opinion that it would require an amendment to the Constitution to make that change? I don’t.
I am puzzled by the intent of your response. The comment I posted about Madison used his comment as one supporting premise for the proposition that our Founders intended for a Natural born citizen to be a child born on American soil from two citizen parents. I included a link to a much fuller exposition where the remark is seen in context.
I don’t know the particulars of the prisoner born in the USA, was he born from parents who were citizens? Had he since taken British nationalization through his parentage?
James Madison’s statement is part of an analysis but not sufficient on its own. I do know that he was one of the Founders that was most concerned that the Navy officers(entirely) & sailors(2/3) were composed of American citizens born on American soil so they could not be pressed by the British.
I think many do not agree with your contention that the meaning has changed, including the members of Congress who brought many bills up in the last 15 years trying to change the meaning of NBC to precisely what you are suggesting it has become. Those bills were defeated and presently those who would like to push Globalization upon us are trying to change the meaning by a more stealthy approach, propaganda. The Harvard group statement is a precisely that.
Why would the courts want that role? Has there been a real problem of our electors choosing presidents who are strangers to America? How could the courts perform that role without necessarily becoming viewed as political actors? A Supreme Court should consider institutional factors like these. The Constitution clearly empowers the electors to choose presidents. Why is there need to reduce their role?
“I think many do not agree with your contention that the meaning has changed, including the members of Congress who brought many bills up in the last 15 years trying to change the meaning of NBC to precisely what you are suggesting it has become. “
You are free to THINK whatever you like, but the FACT is that thousands, if not tens of thousands of human beings born abroad with one American parent have been granted the legal status of an American citizen over the last bunch of decades.
That is also true and granted is the correct word. They applied at the consulate or to the State Department and met the Naturalization Statute requirements in effect at the time of their birth and became citizens but ...are not NBC.
RE: They could do that, but not without placing the judiciary in a role that it should not want to play - a screening committee for presidential candidates.
Whether they want to or not, they HAVE TO.
Look, as I said before, I am a Ted Cruz supporter. However, this issue will continue to be an albatross on his shoulders should he win the nomination now or later.
Why are they a de facto screening committee on the eligibility of a candidate? Because the situation WARRANTS IT.
Might the documents of parents become an issue? Yes it will and it should. Even as we speak there are many FReepers who question the American citizenship of Cruz’s mother ( whether she lost it sometime after she went to Canada and married Ted’s father ).
I’m sure the courts do not want to get involve in all of these ( just as I am sure they were reluctant to take the Gore vs Bush case in 2000 ).
But this is a Constitutional issue. In a country such as ours where men like Rubio, Cruz, and Jindal are all running for President, the issue of “who is a natural born citizen” has to be settled once and for all.
If not now, it will come up later anyway.
Thanks for taking the time to explain the progression of our nation’s history. I took the shortcut and didn’t go through a the ground you so ably covered.
That the Constitution shaped us into a lasting nation as apposed to the short lived loose alignment of independent states formed by the Confederation is probably more correct way to put it.
While I hate to bring up PBS and Ken Burns on this site, in the Civil War Series, Ken made the observation that prior to that war people would say “The United States ARE...” post Civil War they would say “The United States IS....”
If true, I find that observation to be very instructive as to our own self image as a nation. We could speculate that legal constructs/compacts aside, we actually formed our identity as a nation on the forge of civil war much later than our historical founding. (Ken Burns recently learned his ancestors were slave owners. Always difficult for a liberal to learn. lololol)
Of concern to many here is the path of our nation’s continuing development. It would seem that we have traded the system of feudal British Royalty for a system of a protected class of otherwise out of work lawyers and C- students.
Are we in the first stages of revolt to that sad circumstance? Will we return to the founding concept of small government overseen, not by career politicians, but by patriotic citizens, who serve a short time, then return to their previous occupations. So far the latter seems to be the case with Cruz, the career government guy battling for the status quo of an entrenched career “ruling class.”
You are aptly represented ny your screen name.
Yep he reminds me of the guy, admittedly paid for by Organizing for America, who had a list of talking points similar to our latest infestation’s. That guy lasted a year or a little longer before he rode that lightening bolt.
to paraphrase “Poncho and Lefty”...
All the Viking Kitties say, “We could have had him any day,” but let him slip away....out of kindness I suppose!
The only real question is whether he’s (he being a fact not in evidence) a cave, bridge, or mountain troll. Lololol
Yawn, Mr Troll.
One of the Constitutional issues concerns WHO SHOULD DECIDE whether a candidate has the qualifications to be president. That issue does not answer itself. The Court would be well advised to decide that the Constitution empowers electors (and not the courts) to measure the qualifications of candidates.
Courts have often decided that the Constitution entrusts to bodies other than courts the power to make final and binding decisions. As just one example, a court cannot reverse a jury's finding of not guilty in a criminal case even if a court is absolutely certain that the jury was wrong.
The Constitution clearly directs that electors should choose our presidents. The Supreme Court could easily rule that it has no power to review or to overturn the decisions of electors. And, if the justices have good sense, that is what they will do.
“You are free to THINK whatever you like, but the FACT is that thousands, if not tens of thousands of human beings born abroad with one American parent have been granted the legal status of an American citizen over the last bunch of decades.”
Yet to the main point, the Constitutional requirement for assuming the Presidency is a specific form, or quality of born citizenship. Mere born citizenship is NOT the requirement, but rather Natural Born Citizenship is. NBC, as understood by the Founders, being a pure, pedigreed if you will, 100% American citizen in nativity and lineage.
Recoiling from George III, who had German blood and used Hessian mercenaries during the Revolutionary War, The Founders were concerned that the highest office in the land be restricted to those that could be thought to be All American.
Restriction of that office to persons born and raised among their fellow countrymen by parents teaching them the history, character, values, mores, patriotism, fairness, and laws of the US is a reasonable idea incorporated in the Article II eligibility requirements. Even though the NBC requirement is not a 100% guarantee of the intended result it has worked quite well from the founding until 2008 when we ignored it in a mad rush to elect a PC “black” man of whatever stripe.
For the past 8 years we have suffered under the rule of a man not meeting the Article II requirements. Obama is a manifestation come true of the Founders fears. Why would we want to travel that road again? Failure to enforce our own Constitution is leading to others who would ignore it in search of their own personal power. Do we want more of the same that we got with Obama? I say no! What do you say?
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