Replies

Having significant familiarity with the authorities, background, and history of the Natural Born Clause in Article II, Sec. 1, as well as with the views of the Constitutional Law Bar on the question, I can tell you what the consensus is about the current state of the law.

It is generally believed that the Supreme Court would rule that any person born in the United States would be treated as Natural Born; any person not born in the United States would be treated as not Natural Born, no matter what their citizenship status was as a result of birth.

The parent and grandparent citizenship status questions are not viewed as affecting the outcome.

And that is a generally reliable forecast of the Supreme Court outcome by lawyers who practice before the Court on a regular basis.

All that said, the Court is increasingly drifting in the direction of political resolution of this kind of issue and even though the lawyers are in general agreement about what the law is, there is no conclusive precedent that controls and it would not be surprisng to find the Court on a decision that upheld eligibility even for someone born outside the US.

Personally, I strongly support Cruz—I think he would make the most effective candidate.

But, on the current state of the law, I am of the legal opinion that he is not eligible. To date, I have not seen anything that conclusively demonstrates that he was even born a citizen of the United States.

His mother was a citizen? Sure. But the child of a US Citizen mother and non Citizen father born outside the US is a US Citizen at birth only if the mother meets very specific tests set out in the Citizenship statutes.

In order to know whether Cruz passes, you need to know his birth date; his mother’s birth date; the period in which her primary residence was in the geographical limits of the US.

The statutory requirements were amended from time to time with amendments being effective with respect to children born after a specified date.

Further, the consensus of the Constitutional Bar is that the Mother Citizenship statute is not constitutional because there is no equal provision for a Father Citizenship.

Finally, I am concerned that what will happen is that the media will lead Conservatives down the path of support for Cruz until other Conservative candidates are out; then the media will discover that he is not eligible and will send the Republican’s off to nominate Bush or Christie; leaving us with a choice of the Liberal Democrat or a Liberal Republican.

What should be done is to force an effort to identify the place of birth of the present occupant of the White House and use his ineligibility as leverage to get a statutory resolution validating Cruz. That needs to be done now while there is still leverage which will disappear at the end of the current term.

The fact that his citizenship was based on (Congressional) statutory requirements is in itself a demonstration that he is not a ‘natural Citizen’. A requirement of Article II, Section 1.

Any dependency on any law passed by Congress is a form of Naturalization. And a citizen’s source of citizenship must be natural or naturalized - but not both.

The Constitution granted Congress a role in the question of citizenship - it was (and is) charged with defining rules of naturalization - period. It has no role in defining natural citizenship. The one time they have attempted to do so lasted only 5 years. They then backed off - since it was likely pointed out to the them that they had overstepped their bounds.

Citizenship based on statutes passed by Congress = naturalization. A naturalized citizen is not a natural Citizen and is thus obviously not a natural born Citizen.

We seem to be making this much harder than it needs to be - maybe by design....

Thanks David.

Question: When you say "political solution," do you mean an Amendment to clarify eligibility?

Another question: The SCOTUS hasn't the power to remove a sitting President. However, they sure as hell have the power to take an appeal that would allow them to clarify the various citizenship issues that are bedeviling our faltering republic right now. Why the hell don't they do their job?

The SCOTUS' failure to make the effort is a disgrace that will live in infamy (to coin a phrase). Opining on eligibility is NOT a usurpation of Congress' powers because after all, Congress can decide to act on their ruling, whatever that might be, or not act on it.

This has little or nothing to do with Obama and everything to do with who is eligible to run for POTUS in the future.

The very fact that we are discussing this and airing various opinions proves (to me anyway) that SCOTUS authority is needed. It is the Constitution.