Actually, all we have is hearsay on the status of citizenship out of the Cruz campaign.
As of the time of the Canadian voter roll lists, they both were Canadian citizens and certified by the Provincial Election Supervisor. What exact date they became Canadians is unknown.
The Canadian election process can be viewed throughout the years at their website. They explain exactly how the Cruz’s were added to the voting rolls as Canadian citizens. And how voting was only for Canadian citizens.
During the 1950’s Canadians began challenging the authorities over disenfranchisement. Canada actively renewed a pledge for all ethnicities, races, religions, parties, and those over 18 to be registered to vote. They expanded their office to include enumerators to canvass both city and rural areas.
In urban areas, a pair of Election Officials- Enumerators, canvassed door-to-door over an entire precinct.
“Knock-knock”
1. Is this your primary address?
2. Are you a Canadian citizen?
3. Are you over 18 years old?
4. What is your occupation?
5. Do any others reside here ?
The information was transcribed and reviewed by the supervisor at the Election s Bureau. All those that were certified were placed on the voting list. The list was then posted throughout the precinct in designated public places. It was your civic duty to check these lists. If you had been left off the list in error, you were to contact and petition the supervisor of the election board with proof of address and ID.
This was an official job of the enumerator and intentionally omitting or adding people would have resulted in termination, at the very least. This system of canvassing for voters was in place throughout the 1990’s. If the Cruz’s were Cuban & American aliens residing in Calgary, why would they deliberately lie to government officials and claim Canadian citizenship?
Until 1984, they announced voter eligibility by a list notification system. This was used for voter verification at the ballot box. Voters were given thirty days to check the list prior to the deadline to make a correction. Those omitted were to show proof of address and identification and petition the election supervisor to be included by a pre-established deadline. If you failed to notice, you would not be allowed to vote. Due to privacy concerns, they switched back to a post-card notification system for the voters in 1984.
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The Cruz campaign denies Eleanor’s Canadian citizenship by virtue of her not being in Canada long enough. No one really knows how long either parent was there. Note that Rafael could have obtained expedited Canadian citizenship using his Cuban refugee status, he was there in 1964 and again in 1968. Eleanor may have left Britain with a British passport or residency status since she lived in England for 6-8 years. That status shortens the Canadian timeline down to only one year.
The evasion by the Cruz’s is the answer to the question. They were questioned about this two years ago and a campaign manger answered with vague denials on Cruz’s behalf.
Ted would have always known he was born in Canada and would have considered any perks. He would have known that it was a haven for draft-dodgers of the Vietnam War. He would have known it was an alternative to his American citizenship when he obtained his Drivers. License and Passport. Note that he did not clear the citizenship issue quickly when the Dallas News reported his Canadian status. It took him 15 months.
If Cruz’s ultimate goal was to be the President of North America, his status would be ideal.
RE: Actually, all we have is hearsay on the status of citizenship out of the Cruz campaign.
Cruz — full name: Rafael Edward Cruz — was born in Calgary, Canada, in 1970. His family was living there because his father was working for the oil industry at the time. They moved when he was four. Cruz grew up in Texas and graduated from high school there, later attending Princeton University and Harvard Law School.
In 2013, Cruz released his birth certificate, which shows his mother was born in Delaware and his father was born in Cuba. (A situation similar to Obama, whose mother was born in Kansas and father was African.)
Most legal scholars maintain that Cruz is in the clear despite his Canadian birthplace.
But is the issue 100 percent settled?
As a Cruz supporter, I concede Not exactly.
We must first looked into this issue in 2013 but decided to look again now that Cruz has formally announced. The constitutional requirements for a presidential candidate created by the Founding Fathers are concise but not readily clear.
Two provisions are obvious: The candidate must be 35 years of age and a resident of the United States for 14 years. The third qualification: He or she must be a “natural born citizen.”
What does it mean to be a “natural born citizen”?
Most legal experts contend it means someone is a citizen from birth and doesn’t have to go through a naturalization process to become a citizen.
If that’s the definition, then Cruz is a natural born citizen by being born to an American mother and having her citizenship at birth. The Congressional Research Service, the agency tasked with providing authoritative research to all members of Congress, published a report after the 2008 election supporting the thinking that “natural born” citizenship means citizenship held “at birth.”
There are many legal and historical precedents to strongly back up this argument, experts have said.
Those precedents were the subject of a recent op-ed in the Harvard Law Review by two former solicitor generals of opposing parties, Neal Katyal and Paul Clement, who worked for Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, respectively. They wrote that “natural born” had a longstanding definition dating back to colonial times.
British common law recognized that children born outside of the British Empire remained subjects, and were described by law as “natural born,” Katyal and Clement wrote.
“The framers, of course, would have been intimately familiar with these statutes and the way they used terms like ‘natural born,’ since the (British) statutes were binding law in the colonies before the Revolutionary War,’” they said.
Additionally, the first Congress of the United States passed the Naturalization Act of 1790, just three years after the Constitution was written, which stated that children born abroad to U.S. citizens were, too, natural born citizens. Many members of the inaugural Congress were also authors of the Constitution.
Incidentally, this isn’t the first time the qualifications of a candidate have come into question. George Romney, the father of Mitt Romney who ran for president as a Republican in 1968, was born in Mexico. Barry Goldwater, the 1964 GOP presidential nominee, was born in Arizona before it was a state. Neither candidate’s campaign was derailed by citizenship challenges.
More recently, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., faced questions about his eligibility because he was born in the Panama Canal Zone while his father was stationed there.
Interestingly, McCain’s potential Democratic opponents — Obama and then-Sen. Hillary Clinton — co-sponsored a Senate measure to settle McCain’s eligibility. The April 2008 resolution said, “John Sidney McCain, III, is a ‘natural born Citizen’ under Article II, Section 1, of the Constitution of the United States.” It passed unanimously.
The reason a question still remains even after Romney, Goldwater and McCain is because the Supreme Court — the ultimate arbiter of constitutional questions — has never directly ruled on the citizenship provision for presidential office holders. And that means a note of uncertainty remains.
Some have unsuccessfully challenged the qualifications of presidential contenders, but courts have been reluctant to address the issue. Several citizens filed lawsuits asking the court to rule on whether McCain was a natural born citizen early in 2008, but the legal challenges didn’t go anywhere.
But courts may be forced to weigh in if one of two things occur: A state, citing Cruz’s Canadian birthplace, tries to exclude him from the ballot; or another presidential candidate challenges Cruz’s eligibility.
But such challenges have already been made and ALL of them have been dismissed by at least 7 states if I remember correctly. New Jersey was the latest. Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court also took it up and deemed Cruz ELIGIBLE.
The Federal or Supreme could still punt on the question. They could consider this a political question, in which case it would be out of bounds for the courts to interject.
But until it happens, or until a constitutional amendment clarifies matters, we won’t know for sure.