Thread: Cruz, Rubio will stay on ballot; Arkansan had challenged candidates' eligibility

Judge: Cruz, Rubio will stay on ballot; Arkansan had challenged candidates' eligibility

By Linda Satter


PHOTO BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Sens. Ted Cruz, left, and Marco Rubio. Photos by The Associated Press

A Helena-West Helena man who is running for president as an independent candidate got his day in court Monday before a federal judge.

Later in the day, Chief U.S. District Judge Brian Miller issued a written ruling in Little Rock denying David Librace's request for an order knocking Republican presidential candidates Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio off the ballot because of what Librace says is both men's failure to meet the "natural-born citizen" requirement of the U.S. Constitution.

Miller also granted the U.S. senators' motions to dismiss the lawsuit filed Feb. 3 by the 53-year-old Librace, saying that the plumber and former jewelry maker who sued without a lawyer lacks legal standing to bring the suit. To have legal standing, a person must have a sufficient stake to obtain judicial resolution, according to Black's Law Dictionary.

Miller said Librace couldn't show that he has been injured by having the names of Rubio, a U.S. senator from Florida, and Cruz, a U.S. senator from Texas, on the Arkansas ballot.

Cruz was born in Canada to an American mother. Rubio was born in Miami, but his Cuban parents weren't citizens at the time.

"The injuries set forth by Mr. Librace are not concrete and particularized because he shares these injuries with every other voter in Arkansas," Miller said. He said the U.S. Supreme Court has consistently held that "a plaintiff raising only a generally available grievance about government -- claiming only harm to his and every citizen's interest in proper application of the Constitution and laws, and seeking relief that no more directly and tangibly benefits him than it does the public at large -- does not state an Article III case or controversy."

Federal judges derive their authority under Article III of the U.S. Constitution.

Miller also noted that "this is not the first time a plaintiff has challenged a candidate's eligibility to be President, and courts have consistently held that voters do not have standing to sue based on the 'birther' argument," which focuses on whether a candidate satisfies the Constitution's natural-born citizen clause. He cited a ruling from the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that dismissed a similar complaint against President Barack Obama in 2009, a 2008 ruling stemming from a challenge of U.S. Sen. John McCain's eligibility for the presidency that declared that federal judges don't have jurisdiction over such matters, and a 2012 ruling in another case challenging Obama's eligibility.

"Although the questions raised by Mr. Librace are interesting, they are questions that he simply does not have standing to bring," Miller wrote. He said that while the issue itself may not be settled, "What is settled ... is that an individual voter lacks standing to raise that challenge in the federal courts."

The U.S. Supreme Court has never defined the term "natural-born citizen," and Miller said that may be because the courts can't weigh in on the issue in the first place.

A.J. Kelly, Arkansas deputy secretary of state, said the question is one for Congress to decide and that it would be "grossly unfair" to the roughly 170,000 people in Arkansas who have already voted to learn that their votes for either senator didn't count. Those were among several arguments Kelly made Monday in a 33-page answer to the lawsuit after Miller agreed late Friday afternoon to let Librace air his complaints in the courtroom.

The lawsuit named as defendants Secretary of State Mark Martin, who placed Cruz and Rubio on the ballot; the Republican Party of Arkansas; and the two U.S. senators.

Kelly said Librace wasn't a suitable plaintiff because he is a convicted felon from Florida who used to go by the name Roy Allen Cole -- which Librace said was his name before he was adopted.

Attorney Jason Brett Torchinsky of Virginia, who represented one of the candidates, noted that Librace filed his lawsuit more than nine months after both Cruz and Rubio announced their candidacies in the spring of 2015 and more than two months after the Arkansas filing period ended.

Metro on 03/01/2016

http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2...=news-arkansas

It is disgraceful that the court system refuses to rule on eligibity lawsuits. Judges have used several reasons, such as "standing", to refuse to do their job. Although lawsuits were brought about obama's eligibility - no court would hear the case. Clearly Obama, Cruz and Rubio are all Ineligible and they know it.

Birther ballot challenge against Ted Cruz in Illinois tossed by judge