From Drew68's #22: I believe only his mother was. Doesn't really matter. He was born a U.S. citizen. He didn't have to naturalize. I'm sure if he wanted to run, the Senate would extend the same courtesy they did to McCain and declare Cruz natural born by resolution. The courts don't seem interested in addressing the issue of eligibility and the Roberts court in particular has already shown itself willing to defer to the voters.
I am personally strongly pro Cruz--far more effective and more qualified candidate than Rubio. So I view all this commentary as a disaster.
The Natural Born Citizen eligibility question turns solely on the question of whether the individual was born within the geographical limits of the several states--all the rest of this stuff is pure nonsense. That is the substantive Constitutional Law answer.
The stuff about the Robert's Court is applicable to the effort to conceal the place and circumstances of the birth of the current occupant of the White House whose political supporters have obviously developed an effective way to control Roberts. If the Constitutional Law answer were uncertain, which it is not, it is a dreamworld for anyone to believe that a Roberts Court would influence the outcome in our favor.
The Senate action would be as irrelevant as it was in McCain's case--the Senate does not have the Constitutional Power to tell the Supreme Court how to decide questions of Constitutional Law; the Court has historically demonstrated an offensive reaction to this kind of Legislation. McCain was not eligible no matter who was on the Court--he was born in Panama.
Further, the citizenship answer itself is a little more complex--I have not studied Cruz's facts. But if his mother alone was a US Citizen, his citizenship at birth is not a clear answer either--depending on when he was born, citizenship from a US mother citizen requires compliance with several specific conditions.
Even worse, most Constitutional Law authorities (see the article in the Cornell Law Review) view the mother citizenship statute as unconstitutional because it does not provide for equal citizenship access to a person whose father was a US Citizen and the person's mother was not.
Surprising if true that this issue has not come up earlier--because citizenship is required (Article I, Section 3) to serve in the Senate: "No person shall be a Senator who shall not have . . . been nine Years a Citizen of the United States . . . . "
If only his mother was a US Citizen and she does not pass citizenship to Cruz, how does he get to be a Citizen at all absent a nationalization proceeding?
Apparently she did, per U.S. code. If this weren't the case, Cruz would be an illegal immigrant as he never naturalized --a detail I'm sure his political opponents would have seized upon by now.
Is he a natural born citizen? I don't know. This would be for the courts to answer (or they can continue to evade the issue). I do believe that if Ted Cruz decided to run for President, he'd face no serious legal challenge in regards to his eligibility.
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— NYT GOES BIRTHER: ATTACKS ‘CANADIAN-BORN’ CRUZ, CALLS HIM ‘MCCARTHYITE’—
Article, then David’s comments at # 30 , and # 49 .
Thanks, David.
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