Posted on 01/21/2016 5:31:08 AM PST by VitacoreVision
After many years of debate, the meaning of "natural born citizen" remains unsettled.
During last week's Republican presidential debate, Ted Cruz said it's "really quite clear" he is eligible to run for president even though he was born in Canada, because his mother was a U.S. citizen. His rival Donald Trump insisted "there is a serious question" as to whether Cruz qualifies as "a natural born citizen," one of the constitutional requirements for the presidency.
Here is a sentence I never thought I'd type: Donald Trump is right. Cruz describes a consensus that does not exist.
The Texas senator is not alone in doing that. In a Harvard Law Review essay published last March, Neal Katyal and Paul Clement-solicitors general under Barack Obama and George W. Bush, respectively-say "there is no question that Senator Cruz has been a citizen from birth and is thus a 'natural born Citizen' within the meaning of the Constitution." They call claims to the contrary "specious" and "spurious."
No doubt Mary Brigid McManamon, a legal historian at Delaware Law School, would object to those adjectives. In a Washington Post op-ed piece published last week, she says it's "clear and unambiguous," based on British common law during the Founding era, that Cruz is not a "natural born citizen."
As Catholic University law professor Sarah Helen Duggin and Maryland lawyer Mary Beth Collins show in a 2005 Boston University Law Review article, these dueling perspectives are the latest installment of a long-running scholarly debate about the meaning of "natural born citizen." Contrary to Cruz, Katyal, Clement, and McManamon, Duggin and Collins view the phrase as "opaque" and dangerously "ambiguous" (as well as outdated, unfair, and antidemocratic), arguing that it should be excised by amendment.
Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe, whom Trump likes to cite, has taken both sides in this debate. In 2008 Tribe and former Solicitor General Ted Olson coauthored a memo that said John McCain, the GOP nominee that year, was eligible for the presidency even though he was born in the Panama Canal Zone.
Since the Constitution does not define "natural born citizen," Tribe and Olson wrote, to illuminate the term's meaning we must look to the context in which it is used, legislation enacted by the First Congress, and "the common law at the time of the Founding." They said "these sources all confirm that the phrase 'natural born' includes both birth abroad to parents who were citizens, and birth within a nation's territory and allegiance."
Writing in The Boston Globe last week, by contrast, Tribe said "the constitutional definition of a 'natural born citizen' is completely unsettled." He added that based on the originalist approach Cruz favors, he "ironically wouldn't be eligible, because the legal principles that prevailed in the 1780s and '90s required that someone actually be born on US soil to be a 'natural born' citizen." Fordham law professor Thomas Lee makes a similar argument in the Los Angeles Times.
Satisfying as it may be for Cruz's opponents to see him hoist by his own interpretive petard, this way of framing the issue is misleading, because the debate about the meaning of "natural born citizen" is mainly about what the original understanding was, as opposed to whether the original understanding should prevail. Originalists such as Georgetown law professor Randy Barnett and University of San Diego law professor Michael Ramsey argue that their approach favors Cruz.
Another originalist, Independence Institute senior fellow Rob Natelson, who describes himself as an "admirer of Senator Cruz," is not so sure. "Although Senator Cruz's belief that he is natural born may ultimately be vindicated," Natelson writes on The Originalism Blog, "the case against him is very respectable."
Case Western law professor Jonathan Adler, who initially said "there is no question about Ted Cruz's constitutional eligibility to be elected president," later conceded he "may have been too quick to suggest that this issue is completely settled." I was similarly chastened to realize it's not safe to assume everything Donald Trump says is a lie.
Using Cruz’s definition any of those millions of illegitimate or legitimate babies born to American serviceman’s overseas “wives”, “girlfriends”, prostitutes, could come to America,renounce their foreign citizenship, and run for president. This has to be adjudicated and damn soon. The Founding Fathers were not fools. It is we that define that characteristic.
Bet youbare correct and that other issues will be settled
Dad so much wanted this situation to be settled during his lifetime. He just could not believe how much this “LIVING DOCUMENT” had been allowed to go.
It was one of our final discussions
As I have said repeatedly ——Kabuki!
Nor does it have anything to do, it seems, with adhering to the constitution. Everything you say here, I agree with.
-- Trump is a tv star, a WWF star, talks smack. Got it? --
I don't disagree with that either. I totally respect people being uneasy with Trump. There is good reason to be. Set him aside. There remains a question of whether the people will allow government offices to be occupied by people who are ineligible under our laws.
A person could be GREAT on the issue, a citizen of Dubuque - but the people of Springfield would not considered him qualified to be their mayor.
I'm not saying Cruz isn't American. But the constitution has a requirement that president be a natural born Citizen of the US. We should follow the law.
I supported Cruz when he ran for Senator. I believed he was a naturalized citizen since he had been born in Canada, and as he was relatively new to politics, I payed pretty close attention to everything he said. Yet his aspirations for Presidential office was never mentioned.
The day he announced he was running for President, I literally sat down and cried. I knew then his talk about being true to the Constitution was just a matter of convenience for him...and I haven't trusted a word out of his mouth since.
The public is full of usurpers and usurper enablers. So is the media. So is politics
47 million people in food stamps. With helpwanted signs all over the place
No
Hard working taxpayers need to wise up
He emphatically stands on the principle that his MOTHER conferred his American citizenship to him. What he won’t address is the fact that his FATHER also conferred citizenship to him: CUBAN citizenship.
Canada also conferred citizenship to him at his birth in that country.
Cruz can’t possibly, by anyone’s definition, be a Natural Born Citizen of the USA.
And as a Constitutional authority . . he should have known that first-hand.
I am still waiting to see his paperwork on when his MOTHER officially filed his ‘supposed’ American citizenship with the Canadian authorities. Considering Cruz has been a Canadian citizen until just mere MONTHS ago . . I seriously doubt she filed that paperwork before he turned 18 years old. Maybe that’s why he won’t show it.
If the technology we have today had existed in the late 1920's, we'd never know there was a great depression. Now the soup lines are embodied in the EBT cards.
They keep saying....well he came here at age 4...so what. He could have come at age 43 and would have still held the same status until his renouncement.
The requirement for President was custom made for George Washington....the only candidate for President. Look to George’s status for a conclusion.
So far, no serious challenge to these ...
Quick Notes on Eligibility
[I’m no lawyer, but even lawyers have trouble with this — it’s a specialty topic.]
Two Ways of Looking at This
One Way: Original intent. No matter what original intent you look at, Cruz is not eligible.
— Some say ‘must have mother and father — US citizens when overseas.
— Some say ‘must at least have US father when overseas’
— Some insist you must be born in the US.
Other Way: Women Equal.
Now for the ‘women equal’ argument.
As you know, women are treated as equally as possible in the courts these days. That’s what Cruz is banking on — why can’t a mother alone make him qualify?
— But that is not original intent. So while it wins in court, it fails to end the controversy.
~~~
One counter-point to address ...
Even if courts invoke the 14th Amendment, that was debunked by Greetings Puny Humans, not a genuine intepretation:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/3384380/posts?page=68#68
That’s it basically.
Ideally, we are best off to have someone absolutely rock-solid as ‘natural born’ by all major definitions.
The only reason we respect Cruz’ argument at all is because he’s such an awsome patriot-scholar in every other respect. Even his arch-enemy Tribe makes that clear. But that only adds to the confusion.
I am still waiting to see his paperwork on when his MOTHER officially filed his
‘supposed’ American citizenship with the Canadian authorities.
*******************
Please explain what/why she would or did file that ‘US citizenship’ with Canada.
I’ve not heard of such a filing but then I’m not that versed in all things Cruz.
Thanks.....
The cage fight continues while Senate Majority-Traitor McConman laughs at the hopelessly mired Tea Party supporters of Cruz.
Original intent v. Cruz and ‘equality of women’.
It’s a no-win either way for conservatives.
The judges will rule on behalf of ‘equality of women’, and then the democrats will quote Tribe and anyone else who knows how to figure out original intent. College radicals and the New Black Panthers will suddenly become the ‘defenders of the constitution’.
A divided nation. Not good.
If Cruz weren’t such a great candidate, I’d have thrown him under the bus on this utterly and without compassion.
As it is?
I would support an amendment to make such a fine patriot eligibible.
FRegards ....
And well it should.
Points to consider:
Immigration status-
O’s dad was never a resident of, or immigrant to the us; Ted’s dad had residency.
Allowed/not allowed to stay-
0’s dad only had a student permission to be here and it was not renewed due to skirt-chasing; Ted’s dad had a student permission and then got asylum.
For the above two items on 0 Sr, see the Dahlin memo in 0 Sr’s INS files.
Acquisition of us citizenship-
0’s mom wasn’t old enough to convey us citizenship,Ted’s mom was.
See 0’s mom’s birth certificate; she was born on November 29th, 1942, and in early August 1961 was 18 years 9 months old; requirement to pass citizenship was 19 years old.
Authenticity of birth documrnt-
0’s posted birth certificate is fake; Ted’s is real.
See white house web site for a layered, inaccurate forgery; wrong birthday & racial description of 0 Sr for starters.
No...it depends on how much the slimes in Congress care to listen to We The People and take care of business.
You think the soup from the soup lines came from the government? From taxpayers?
You think the soup line workers were government workers? Or corporate paid? You’re thinking a good percentage of the guys on soup lines refused to speak English and otherwise assimilate ?
You think they would have refused to answer a help wanted sign?
You think there were help wanted signs all over ?
Note post 31 — mother’s status doesn’t matter if you are a strict constructionist regarding original intent.
Can one be an originalist and modernize to make mother’s status equal to husband’s? Some think so ... but ...
Only those who have rock-solid eligibility should be the ones to run in the first place. Even the courts, whichever way they rule, fail to command public respect.
So he has left his donors and supporters hanging.
His opponents are many and he has but one place to go is Court.
America is no longer a Republic with the rule of law, so this discussion is a waste of energy. The eligibility will be decided by the oligarchy if and when Cruz is nominated.
How then did he get a passport to travel outside the US when in high school?
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