Thread: 'Natural Born' Issue for Ted Cruz Is Not Settled and Not Going Away

JAN 18 2016, 9:27 PM ET


'Natural Born' Issue for Ted Cruz Is Not Settled and Not Going Away

by PETE WILLIAMS


Republican presidential candidates (L-R) Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) speak during the Republican presidential debate a on Jan.14, 2016 in North Charleston, South Carolina. Scott Olson / Getty Images

While the nation's legal scholars differ over the exact meaning of the Constitution's requirement that a person must be a "natural born citizen" to become president, they're unanimous in saying Ted Cruz is wrong about an important point.

"As a legal matter, the question is quite straightforward and settled law," Cruz has said."People will continue to make political noise about it, but as a legal matter it is quite straightforward."

Related: Cruz on White House Eligibility: It's Settled Law

In fact, the experts say, it is neither settled nor straightforward.

It's not settled — because the Constitution does not define "natural born," a phrase that appears in the nation's founding document only once.

And though the federal courts have chewed on it from time to time, the U.S. Supreme Court has never officially said what it means.

It's not straightforward — because at the time the Constitution was written there were different ideas about what the phrase meant and competing legal theories about where the power to confer citizenship came from.

The meaning of the term is so unsettled that scores of constitutional experts have been writing about it in the weeks since Donald Trump made it an issue in the 2016 campaign.

Related: Is Ted Cruz a Natural Born Citizen? Ask the Founders

To review, Ted Cruz was born in Canada in 1970, where his Cuban father was working at the time. But Cruz's mother was an American citizen, so under US immigration law, that made him an American citizen, too.

So he is citizen, yes, but does the Constitution require something more to be natural born? If not, why was the term there in the first place, instead of providing simply that a person had to be born a citizen?

The simple answer is, it's impossible to know for certain. The founders devoted little time to discussing it. One day the term wasn't in the draft Constitution. The next day it was, and that was just about that.

The emerging consensus of the legal experts, however, is that being "natural born" means becoming a citizen at the moment of birth, as opposed to achieving it later through the process of naturalization.

"Natural in natural born doesn't mean biological. It means naturally, that is automatically, happening without any further intervention," said Constitutional law Professor Jack Balkin of Yale Law School.

And what could confer citizenship at birth? Clearly, being born in the United States, a concept familiar to the founders, who were well aware that anyone born in a place under control of the crown was a natural born British subject.

But the founders also knew that the British parliament could declare someone born abroad to British parents a "natural born subject."

The Constitution gave Congress that same authority through the power of naturalization, said Professor Michael Ramsey, of the University of San Diego School of Law.

Like the power British Parliament had, the congressional authority "includes both the power to establish rules for naturalizing foreign citizens on an individual basis and the power to declare categories of persons citizens by circumstances of their birth."

By the time Cruz was born, U.S. immigration law granted birthright citizenship to the child born overseas to at least one American citizen parent who had been living in the United States for a designated time.

Other experts, however, have said it's not so clear cut.

Professor Laurence Tribe of Harvard noted that, when the Constitution was written, citizenship passed through the father.

"Having just an American mother, as Cruz did, would clearly have been insufficient."

Trump has repeatedly said Cruz himself could get this issue settled simply by going to court and asking for a decision.

But Trump is wrong about that.

"Cruz can't just go to federal court for a declaratory injunction without some plausible claim that he's in danger of government action being taken against him," said Yale's Balkin.

One lawsuit has already been filed over the issue, by a retired federal prosecutor in Texas who claims to be suing on behalf of all registered voters. It will almost certainly be thrown out. The courts don't normally permit lawsuits claiming such a diffuse and abstract claim of injury.

But if a county or state official somewhere refused to put Cruz's name on the ballot, concerned he's not natural born, then Cruz could sue, and the issue would be squarely before the courts.

Federal judges then would be required to delve into the same history and struggle with the same issues that have animated legal experts over the Trump-Cruz controversy.

They will confront, said San Diego's Ramsey, a clause of the Constitution that is "mysterious and ambiguous."

And anything but settled.

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016...g-away-n499226

Yeah, the issue isn't going away until Cruz goes away. Knock 'em out in Iowa and New Hampshire. And when Ted Cruz said "it's settled law", when it's "And anything but settled", he lied.

Stay True!! Stay Trump!!

Originally Posted by Judy

Yeah, the issue isn't going away until Cruz goes away. Knock 'em out in Iowa and New Hampshire. And when Ted Cruz said "it's settled law", when it's "And anything but settled", he lied.

Stay True!! Stay Trump!!

Unless the U.S. Supreme Court takes it up, which seems unlikely, it seems pretty settled to me.

The U.S. Senate was the one to declare McCain eligible to be president.


. . . "the Senate approved a nonbinding resolution declaring that Mr. McCain is eligible to be president." . . .

JULY 11, 2008 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/11/us.../11mccain.html

Text of A resolution recognizing that John Sidney McCain, III, is a natural born citizen.

This simple resolution was agreed to on April 30, 2008. That is the end of the legislative process for a simple resolution. The text of the bill below is as of Apr 30, 2008

(Resolution Agreed to by Senate).

Download PDF
Source: GPO

III

110th CONGRESS
2d Session
S. RES. 511
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

April 10, 2008

Mrs. McCaskill (for herself, Mr. Leahy, Mr. Obama, Mr. Coburn, Mrs. Clinton, and Mr. Webb) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary

April 24, 2008

Reported by Mr. Leahy, without amendment

April 30, 2008
Considered and agreed to

RESOLUTION

Recognizing that John Sidney McCain, III, is a natural born citizen.

Whereas the Constitution of the United States requires that, to be eligible for the Office of the President, a person must be a natural born Citizen of the United States;

Whereas the term natural born Citizen, as that term appears in Article II, Section 1, is not defined in the Constitution of the United States;

Whereas there is no evidence of the intention of the Framers or any Congress to limit the constitutional rights of children born to Americans serving in the military nor to prevent those children from serving as their country’s President;

Whereas such limitations would be inconsistent with the purpose and intent of the natural born Citizen clause of the Constitution of the United States, as evidenced by the First Congress's own statute defining the term natural born Citizen;

Whereas the well-being of all citizens of the United States is preserved and enhanced by the men and women who are assigned to serve our country outside of our national borders;

Whereas previous presidential candidates were born outside of the United States of America and were understood to be eligible to be President;

and Whereas John Sidney McCain, III, was born to American citizens on an American military base in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936: Now, therefore, be it

That John Sidney McCain, III, is a natural born Citizen under Article II, Section 1, of the Constitution of the United States.

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/110/sres511/text

Americans will have to settle this with our votes. Obama is the only non-natural born citizen to be elected to the office of President. I hope Americans don't make that mistake again.

STAY TRUE!! STAY TRUMP!!

Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

The U.S. Senate was the one to declare McCain eligible to be president.


. . . "the Senate approved a nonbinding resolution declaring that Mr. McCain is eligible to be president." . . .

JULY 11, 2008 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/11/us.../11mccain.html

Yep, but many Republicans in the U.S. Senate do not like Cruz, including McConnel who says they're staying out of it. That's fine because there are many Senate Republican's a lot of us conservative voters don't care for either, including McConnel.

1. Eight of the first nine presidents – Martin Van Buren being the exception – as well as early potential presidential candidates, were born as British subjects in British America before the American Revolution but were eligible for the office by virtue of having been citizens at the time that the Constitution was adopted ...
   
   Natural-born-citizen clause - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
   
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural-born-citizen_clauseWikipedia

Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

1. Eight of the first nine presidents – Martin Van Buren being the exception – as well as early potential presidential candidates, were born as British subjects in British America before the American Revolution but were eligible for the office by virtue of having been citizens at the time that the Constitution was adopted ...
   
   Natural-born-citizen clause - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
   
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural-born-citizen_clauseWikipedia

That's because they were born before the United States existed. There's a special provision in Article II covering that generation only where they only had to be Citizens, not natural born citizens because for them, that was an impossibility. However, all generations after them had to be born in the US to 2 US citizens, i. e. natural born citizens.

The settlers and Constitution drawers were of course from Europe and they, rightfully so, set rules for the future of America accentuating "natural born".

Is it not the country that everyone seems to want "to be here" because of THEIR efforts of establishing a NEW COUNTRY, #1 IN THE WORLD - not to be overtaken by SNEAKER ILLEGALS NOR DECEITFUL UNDERHANDED MUSLIMS
- BOTH BY TREASON HAVE BEEN LET INTO THE USA.

Some official branch needs to clarify the non-eligibility for Cruz and Rubio. Seems the Senate did that for McCain.

Cruz has not presented the documents re his mother's, father's citizenship timing etc. - STRANGE, THAT IT HAS NOT BEEN PRESENTED BY CRUZ BY NOW. Rubio is a so called "anchor baby" and is no way qualified for POTUS OR VP