Posted on 08/26/2013 1:51:55 PM PDT by SoConPubbie
This article appeared on Daily Caller on August 26, 2013.
As we head into a potential government shutdown over the funding of Obamacare, the iconoclastic junior senator from Texas — love him or hate him — continues to stride across the national stage. With his presidential aspirations as big as everything in his home state, by now many know what has never been a secret: Ted Cruz was born in Canada.
(Full disclosure: I’m Canadian myself, with a green card. Also, Cruz has been a friend since his days representing Texas before the Supreme Court.)
But does that mean that Cruz’s presidential ambitions are gummed up with maple syrup or stuck in snowdrifts altogether different from those plaguing the Iowa caucuses? Are the birthers now hoist on their own petards, having been unable to find any proof that President Obama was born outside the United States but forcing their comrade-in-boots to disqualify himself by releasing his Alberta birth certificate?
No, actually, and it’s not even that complicated; you just have to look up the right law. It boils down to whether Cruz is a “natural born citizen” of the United States, the only class of people constitutionally eligible for the presidency. (The Founding Fathers didn’t want their newly independent nation to be taken over by foreigners on the sly.)
What’s a “natural born citizen”? The Constitution doesn’t say, but the Framers’ understanding, combined with statutes enacted by the First Congress, indicate that the phrase means both birth abroad to American parents — in a manner regulated by federal law — and birth within the nation’s territory regardless of parental citizenship. The Supreme Court has confirmed that definition on multiple occasions in various contexts.
There’s no ideological debate here: Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe and former solicitor general Ted Olson — who were on opposite sides in Bush v. Gore among other cases — co-authored a memorandum in March 2008 detailing the above legal explanation in the context of John McCain’s eligibility. Recall that McCain — lately one of Cruz’s chief antagonists — was born to U.S. citizen parents serving on a military base in the Panama Canal Zone.
In other words, anyone who is a citizen at birth — as opposed to someone who becomes a citizen later (“naturalizes”) or who isn’t a citizen at all — can be president.
So the one remaining question is whether Ted Cruz was a citizen at birth. That’s an easy one. The Nationality Act of 1940 outlines which children become “nationals and citizens of the United States at birth.” In addition to those who are born in the United States or born outside the country to parents who were both citizens — or, interestingly, found in the United States without parents and no proof of birth elsewhere — citizenship goes to babies born to one American parent who has spent a certain number of years here.
That single-parent requirement has been amended several times, but under the law in effect between 1952 and 1986 — Cruz was born in 1970 — someone must have a citizen parent who resided in the United States for at least 10 years, including five after the age of 14, in order to be considered a natural-born citizen. Cruz’s mother, Eleanor Darragh, was born in Delaware, lived most of her life in the United States, and gave birth to little Rafael Edward Cruz in her 30s. Q.E.D.
So why all the brouhaha about where Obama was born, given that there’s no dispute that his mother, Ann Dunham, was a citizen? Because his mother was 18 when she gave birth to the future president in 1961 and so couldn’t have met the 5-year-post-age-14 residency requirement. Had Obama been born a year later, it wouldn’t have mattered whether that birth took place in Hawaii, Kenya, Indonesia, or anywhere else. (For those born since 1986, by the way, the single citizen parent must have only resided here for five years, at least two of which must be after the age of 14.)
In short, it may be politically advantageous for Ted Cruz to renounce his Canadian citizenship before making a run at the White House, but his eligibility for that office shouldn’t be in doubt. As Tribe and Olson said about McCain — and could’ve said about Obama, or the Mexico-born George Romney, or the Arizona-territory-born Barry Goldwater — Cruz “is certainly not the hypothetical ‘foreigner’ who John Jay and George Washington were concerned might usurp the role of Commander in Chief.”
Odimwit is/was eligible.
Cruz is eligible.
And that’s just it.
Where exactly is “natural born citizen” defined in the Constitution?
The law and the Constitution are what they are. Your theories are nothing. You are inconsequential, and will have no affect.
/johnny
/johnny
Especially in his present state, LOL!
Benjamin Franklin to: Charles William Frederic Dumas
----------------------------------------------------------------------- Dear Sir,
Philadelphia, 9 December, 1775.
I received your several favors, of May 18th, June 30th, and July 8th, by Messrs. Vaillant and Pochard;(1) whom if I could serve upon your recommendation, it would give me great pleasure. Their total want of English is at present an obstruction to their getting any employment among us; but I hope they will soon obtain some knowledge of it. This is a good country for artificers or farmers; but gentlemen of mere science in les belles lettres cannot so easily subsist here, there being little demand for their assistance among an industrious people, who, as yet, have not much leisure for studies of that kind.
I am much obliged by the kind present you have made us of your edition of Vattel. It came to us in good season, when the circumstances of a rising state make it necessary frequently to consult the law of nations. Accordingly that copy, which I kept, (after depositing one in our own public library here, and sending the other to the College of Massachusetts Bay, as you directed,) has been continually in the hands of the members of our Congress, now sitting, who are much pleased with your notes and preface, and have entertained a high and just esteem for their author. Your manuscript "Idee sur le Gouvernement et la Royaute" is also well relished, and may, in time, have its effect. I thank you, likewise, for the other smaller pieces, which accompanied Vattel. "Le court Expose de ce qui s'est passe entre la Cour Britannique et les Colonies," bc. being a very concise and clear statement of facts, will be reprinted here for the use of our new friends in Canada. The translations of the proceedings of our Congress are very acceptable. I send you herewith what of them has been farther published here, together with a few newspapers, containing accounts of some of the successes Providence has favored us with. We are threatened from England with a very powerful force, to come next year against us.(2) We are making all the provision in our power here to oppose that force, and we hope we shall be able to defend ourselves. But, as the events of war are always uncertain, possibly, after another campaign, we may find it necessary to ask the aid of some foreign power.
Go, Cruz, GO!!
/johnny
Where is any term defined in the Constitution?
Original intent.
His mother was. That’s all he needs.
/johnny
No, not with having been Canadian by birthplace, Cuban from his father.
CAN
SHOULD
WILL
The question as to where Obama was born is not the only concern about Obama's citizenship qualification to be president. The concern about where Obama was born is a decoy from the corrupt media imo, including Obama guard dog Fx News, to keep citizens from wising up about major constitutional concerns with Obama's citizenship qualifications to be president.
More specifically, John Bingham, the main author of Section 1 of the 14th Amendment which addresses citizenship, had officially clarified the following about requirements to be a natural born citizen. Bingham had noted in the congressional record that one criterion for somebody to be a natural born citizen is that both parents must be full citizens when that person is born.
“All from other lands, who by the terms of [congressional] laws and a compliance with their provisions become naturalized, are adopted citizens of the United States; all other persons born within the Republic, of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty, are natural born citizens. (emphasis added) Gentleman can find no exception to this statement touching natural-born citizens except what is said in the Constitution relating to Indians.” (Cong. Globe, 37th, 2nd Sess., 1639 (1862)) (See bottom half of 1st column.)“I find no fault with the introductory clause, which is simply declaratory of what is written in the Constitution, that every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen; (emphasis added) but, sir, I may be allowed to say further, that I deny that the Congress of the United States ever had the power or color of power to say that any man born within the jurisdiction of the United States, and not owing a foreign allegiance, is not and shall not be a citizen of the United States.” John A. Bingham, (R-Ohio) US Congressman, Architect of Section 1 of the 14th Amendment, March 9, 1866. Cong. Globe, 39th, 1st Sess., 1291 (1866), Sec. 1992 of U.S. Revised Statutes (1866), Cf. U.S. Const. XIVth Amend. (See top half of 2nd column)
And since Obama's official birth certificate indicated that Obama Sr., a man possibly not Obama's biological father, was likely not a US citizen, then Obama is not constitutionally qualified to be president if such is the case. But also note that Cruz may have similar citizenship problems.
We need Freepers like you around here like we need the plague.
IBTZ
2. Barack Obama has blurred the lines and intent of any previous rules in many of our statutes beyond simple eligibility. Any litigation in multiple instances of how he became president and what he has done since would be litigated for years.
Some germane citations that anyone researching this would consider ..for starters..., per your request...
US Constitution Article II, Section 1, Clause 5.
Minor v. Happensett, 21 Wall 162, 166-168 (1874)
US v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 US 649 (1898)
Perkins v. Elg, 307US325 (1939).
(There are additional authorities that should probably also be consulted to place the entire subject of how our Founding Fathers sought to insure, as best they could, the loyalty of Presidents.)
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