Ted Cruz 'birther' row focusing on Cruz's MOTHER

Ted Cruz 'birther' row may go to court as Democrat gets ready for case focusing on Cruz's MOTHER (and his wife weighs in)

• Cruz was born in Canada, but mother Eleanor was a US citizen
• Senator had dual US-Canada citizenship for years but renounced his Canadian citizenship after his 2012 Senate election
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• Cruz has come under fire by Donald Trump for possibly being ineligible to run for the White House
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• Florida congressman preparing lawsuit to challenge Cruz's eligibility for the presidency if he wins the GOP nomination
• Cruz campaign dismisses controversy - but has examined Eleanor Cruz's birth certificate
• Cruz's wife Heidi blames attacks on candidate's success

By J. TAYLOR RUSHING, U.S. POLITICAL REPORTER, FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 12:52 EST, 8 January 2016 | UPDATED: 19:10 EST, 8 January 2016
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Republican presidential runner-up Ted Cruz's eligibility in the 2016 nomination race is continuing to split open on the campaign trail.
Cruz, a first-term Texas senator, is not only taking fire from prominent Republicans such as front-runner Donald Trump and 2008 GOP nominee John McCain over his claims of U.S. citizenship - but he now faces a potential lawsuit by a Democratic congressman.

Florida Rep. Alan Grayson, an attorney, said this week he will sue to challenge Cruz's eligibility for the presidency if the senator somehow overtakes Trump and wins the GOP presidential nomination.

Cruz is currently in second place in national polls on the GOP primary, according to an average compiled by Real Clear Politics - but he is leading by a modest margin in Iowa, where the first contest of the season comes with caucuses on Feb. 1.

Cruz was born in Canada in 1970 to a mother who was a U.S. citizen - giving him 'natural born' citizenship under the U.S. Constitution - although there is little legal precedent for that theory being tested on a presidential nominee.

But Grayson says Eleanor Cruz may have forfeited her U.S. citizenship by taking a Canadian oath of citizenship - as specified in Section 349 of the Immigration and Nationality Act. He went on to say that there is no documented evidence that she was in fact born in the United States.

Ted Cruz's citizenship became an issue in recent days because of Trump, who is mindful of Cruz's polling lead in Iowa and this week suggested the Texas senator seek a declaratory judgment in court.

In an interview on Tuesday with The Washington Post, Trump said the question of Cruz's citizenship puts the GOP in a 'very precarious' position.

'He’d be running and the courts may take a long time to make decision. You don’t want to be running and have that kind of thing over your head, Trump said.

'I’d hate to see something like that get in his way. But a lot of people are talking about it, and I know that even some states are looking at it very strongly, the fact that he was born in Canada and he has had a double passport.'

Cruz indeed had dual citizenship in both the U.S. and Canada for decades, but renounced his Canadian citizenship after he was elected to the Senate in 2012.

Trump is something of an expert in raising so-called 'birther' claims, having needled President Obama about his own U.S. citizenship for years before Obama finally released his Hawaii birth certificate a few years ago.

On Wednesday, none other than MCain added fuel to the fire over Cruz.

The Arizona senator and 2008 GOP presidential nominee, said he cannot verify Cruz's citizenship but said it was a fair issue to raise. McCain himself was born on a U.S. military base at the Panama Canal.

'Yeah, it was a U.S. military base,' McCain said of his birth. 'That’s different from being born on foreign soil, so I think there is a question. I am not a constitutional scholar on that, but I think it’s worth looking into. I don’t think it’s illegitimate to look into it.'

Also Wednesday, in an interview with CNN, Trump suggested Cruz should get the question resolved.

'You go to federal court, you ask for a declaratory judgment. Once the court rules, you have your decision,' Trump said. 'That will clear it all up.'

For his part, Cruz has said he never had a Canadian passport.

'The media, with all due respect, love to engage in silly sideshows. We need to focus on what matters,' he told CNN.

Cruz spokesman Rick Tyler told U.S. News and World Report Wednesday that a potential lawsuit by Grayson is 'patent nonsense,' and added that he has examined Eleanor Cruz's U.S. birth certificate and maintained that she never became a Canadian citizen.

'Eleanor Cruz, like Ted Cruz, has never breathed a single breath of her life not being a U.S. citizen,' Tyler told the magazine, adding that Grayson would not even have legal standing to bring a lawsuit against Cruz.

On Thursday, Cruz's own wife jumped into the fray, saying in an interview on The Boston Herald Radio's 'Morning Meeting' show, 'I fully expect that this will fade, as Ted is indisputably a U.S. citizen.'

'The definition of natural-born citizen is not in dispute and Ted definitely fits that description,' Heidi Cruz said.

'I think this is an example of Ted winning this race and people looking for things to be a distraction,' she said. 'We’re really not worried about something that is not in dispute in a legal sense.'

Cruz also pointed out that George Romney, a 1968 GOP presidential candidate and the father of 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney, was born in Mexico to a U.S.-born mother.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3390647/Ted-Cruz-birther-row-court-Democrat-gets-ready-case-focusing-Cruz-s-MOTHER-wife-weighs-in.html#ixzz3wmSffJ8k

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Cruz also pointed out that George Romney, a 1968 GOP presidential candidate and the father of 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney, was born in Mexico to a U.S.-born mother.

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Both of George Romney's parents were American citizens and he left the race before the matter of the dispute over his eligibility could be resolved.

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On Thursday, Cruz's own wife jumped into the fray, saying in an interview on The Boston Herald Radio's 'Morning Meeting' show, 'I fully expect that this will fade, as Ted is indisputably a U.S. citizen.'

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The standard is not a "U. S. citizen", that is the standard to be in the Congress, the requirement for President and Vice President is a "natural born citizen" which is born in the US to 2 US citizen parents.

Americans have known what a natural born citizen is for well over 200 years.

Point A:

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the requirement for President and Vice President is a "natural born citizen" which is born in the US to 2 US citizen parents.

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O was not eligible to be President of the USA & should have been challenged. Heard at the time, Bill Clinton was told to shut his muff or Chelsea would be harmed. Can't prove that but do remember him mentioning some sort of non requirement but stopped protesting suddenly. Therefore, the slippery slope of the presidency of O & its fruition....enough said. Let us not repeat that.

Aside from that fact, at least prove
Point B: what year Eleanor denounced her American citizenship to take an oath for Canadian citizenship? That proof has not been forthcoming.

The Cruz campaign should answer that simple question. She moved there in '67, Ted born '70, she was listed as an eligible Canadian voter on the '74 election list.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-governm...a-voters-list/

Show us all the papers on that point even though 'Point A" is "missing" and non-adjustable...

Snakes slither thru the grass....

Ted Cruz is a viable & appreciated Senator - case closed unless there are more proofs in the pudding forthcoming.

I'm very disappointed that Trump is the biggest whiner on this. The only reason he is doing it is because he's feeling the heat from Cruz in Iowa. It's not like he (Trump) is jumping on the bandwagon on this, he's being the main agitator. If you ask me, this is not a good show of character for Trump. It was just this past September that Trump was saying Cruz was eligible to run for President. What's changed since then other than Cruz's gain in the polls? Well, that would be absolutely nothing.

Here's the video of Trump saying Cruz was eligible to run back in September:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pr7YtcKWqIE

Judy wrote:

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The standard is not a "U. S. citizen", that is the standard to be in the Congress, the requirement for President and Vice President is a "natural born citizen" which is born in the US to 2 US citizen parents.

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No, it's not.

There are three conditions for meeting the requirement of being considered a natural born citizen. A person only has to meet one of the three.

Excerpt:

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The weight of legal and historical authority indicates that the term “natural born” citizen would mean a person who is entitled to U.S. citizenship “by birth” or “at birth,” either by being born“in” the United States and under its jurisdiction, even those born to alien parents; by being born abroad to U.S. citizen-parents; or by being born in other situations meeting legal requirements for U.S. citizenship “at birth.” Such a term, however, would not include a person who was not a U.S.citizen by birth or at birth, and who was thus born an “alien” required to go through the legal process of “naturalization” to become a U.S. citizen.

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http://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42097.pdf

Ted Cruz is obviously qualified by meeting the third condition which I highlighted in bold above.

If his mother gave up her U.S. citizenship to become a Canadian citizen before he was born he had NO U.S. citizen parents at birth.


"Eleanor Cruz may have forfeited her U.S. citizenship by taking a Canadian oath of citizenship - as specified in Section 349 of the Immigration and Nationality Act."

Ted Cruz Mom Appears on 1974 Canadian Voter List

http://www.newsmax.com/CMSPages/GetF...axsidesize=600(Wire Services Photo)

By Cathy Burke | Friday, 08 Jan 2016 09:18 PM

The name of Sen. Ted Cruz's U.S.-born mother reportedly appeared on a Canadian government document listing her as a citizen eligible to vote in the 1974 federal election there.

Talking Points Memo reports it received the Canadian document in 2013 but didn't publish it because the GOP presidential contender – who now faces eligibility questions of his own from rivals Donald Trump and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul – wasn't yet a candidate.

Breitbart News posted a story Friday as well, along with a lengthy response from the Cruz campaign asserting there was no question of Eleanor Cruz's American citizenship.
http://newsmaxtv.com/App_Themes/News.../nmxtvlogo.png

According to Jason Johnson, Cruz's chief campaign strategist, the Republican presidential candidate's mom "was never a citizen of Canada," and couldn't have been one when her son was born because of residency requirements, Breitbart reports.

Eleanor Cruz was born in Delaware, while her ex-husband, Rafael Cruz, was born in Cuba, obtained Canadian citizenship while living in Calgary and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in the mid-2000s, Johnson explained.

TPM reports the document in question is a voter list of individuals who lived in the southern district of the city of Calgary, were over the age of 18 and were Canadian citizens, thus eligible to vote.

"The document itself does not purport to be a list of 'registered Canadian voters'," the campaign statement said. "All this might conceivably establish is that this list of individuals (maybe) lived at the given addresses. It says nothing about who was a citizen eligible to vote."

TPM notes there's no other evidence Eleanor Cruz ever became a Canadian citizen, and that she and her son have consistently denied she was one.

And, TPM reports, even if were proven that Eleanor Cruz had become a Canadian citizen, she might well have remained a U.S. citizen too, maintaining a dual citizenship.

Ted Cruz, who was a dual citizen, formally renounced his Canadian citizenship in 2014.

Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/ted-...#ixzz3wnrQ3WWJ

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Originally Posted by MW

Judy wrote:



No, it's not.

There are three conditions for meeting the requirement of being considered a natural born citizen. A person only has to meet one of the three.

Excerpt:



http://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42097.pdf

Ted Cruz is obviously qualified by meeting the third condition which I highlighted in bold above.

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Under Article II of the US Constitution, in 1789 - present, to be eligible for President of the United States as a natural born citizen, one has to be born in the US to 2 US citizen parents. What you are describing in your "fas.org" is birthright citizenship granted by either naturalization law or the 14th Amendment. If Ted Cruz mother was a US citizen when he was born in Canada, he's a citizen of the US, not a natural born citizen because he wasn't born in the US and his father is an alien at the time of his birth.

Rubio isn't eligible either.

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Originally Posted by MW

I'm very disappointed that Trump is the biggest whiner on this. The only reason he is doing it is because he's feeling the heat from Cruz in Iowa. It's not like he (Trump) is jumping on the bandwagon on this, he's being the main agitator. If you ask me, this is not a good show of character for Trump. It was just this past September that Trump was saying Cruz was eligible to run for President. What's changed since then other than Cruz's gain in the polls? Well, that would be absolutely nothing.

Here's the video of Trump saying Cruz was eligible to run back in September:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pr7YtcKWqIE

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Trump isn't saying he's eligible, he's saying he's been told he is, presumably by Ted.

Why do you want people who aren't eligible to be President and Vice President to run for the Office?

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Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

If his mother gave up her U.S. citizenship to become a Canadian citizen before he was born he had NO U.S. citizen parents at birth.


"Eleanor Cruz may have forfeited her U.S. citizenship by taking a Canadian oath of citizenship - as specified in Section 349 of the Immigration and Nationality Act."

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Where are you getting your facts from? I've seen absolutely no proof that Cruz's mother gave up her U.S. citizenship, have you? As for being on a voting list ...... what does that really mean, even if it is true? Heck, we've got illegal aliens that appear on voting list here in the United States all the time. Your own state of California is actually registering illegals to vote, isn't it? People are just slinging a lot of mud now in the hopes that some of it will stick. If I was you, I wouldn't bet my farm that Cruz's mother forfeited her U.S. citizenship. Exactly why would she do that, especially since she wasn't even a Canadian citizen. Let's see the proof that she wasn't a U.S. citizen when she gave birth to Ted Cruz and I'll shut up. Until then, it's probably not wise to join the mud slinging club unless you have proof to back up the accusation. Just saying .......

Oh, and from what I understand, Cruz, has already produced his mothers birth certificate showing she was born in Delaware. Have you heard different? Just curious to know if you're privy to some information I'm not.

Cruz's father had Canadian citizenship. His father and mother went to Canada at the same time. The other day when Jake Tapper or someone was interviewing him on the subject, Cruz said his mother couldn't have had Canadian citizenship because of the "residency requirement". Well, they would have both had the same residency. So was Cruz born to a father who was still a Cuban citizen?

See, this is why only natural born citizens are eligible to run for the office of President and Vice President so that our determination of citizenship eligibility for the office does not depend upon the records or citizenship laws of other countries. We're a sovereign nation and in order for our Constitution to rule properly, it must be based upon those matters domestic that we control and know about. We can't have a Presidential election dependent upon what someone in Canada did while they were registering Canadian citizens to vote. We can't have a Presidential election dependent upon when someone left Cuba or when they moved to Canada or how long they stayed or whether they denounced US citizenship. It's beyond absurd.

The rule is simple:

1. born in the USA
2. born to 2 US citizens

Period.

Based on what we know, the children of Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio can run for President and Vice President, but their fathers can not. Cruz and Rubio already have nice jobs with a lot of power, perhaps too much, but at least they're eligible for the spots they hold. They are neither one eligible for the Big Promotion in more ways than one, but the one stops their trains now and that's what needs to be done. Their trains need to be stopped.

Thank you Trump for applying the brakes.

All of the accusations and claims seem to come from news articles

so I don't see as how some are "proof" and others are just "false claims".

Her birth certificate means nothing when the question is,

did she become a Canadian citizen before his birth.

The only thing we have are news articles.

None of them PROVE anything.

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Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

All of the accusations and claims seem to come from news articles

so I don't see as how some are "proof" and others are just "false claims".

Her birth certificate means nothing when the question is,

did she become a Canadian citizen before his birth.

The only thing we have are news articles.

None of them PROVE anything.

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There's really nothing to prove. He wasn't born in the US to 2 US citizens. He was born in Canada to either 1 US citizen or 0 US citizens, either way, he's not a natural born citizen, just as Obama was not a natural born citizen whether he was born in Hawaii or somewhere else, he was ineligible because his father was not a US citizen.

None of this is complicated when you're a natural born citizen, which is another reason why we need to keep it that way. These candidates that are not natural born citizens create controversy, disrupt our domestic tranquility, and interfere with our elections as they were Constitutionally laid-out to occur. Federal and State Election Officials as well as our political parties better start doing their jobs and tell these Yahoo Wanna Be Prezidentes, "YOU'RE FIRED".

Is Ted Cruz a 'natural born Citizen'? Not if you're a constitutional originalist.

@ Is Ted Cruz eligible to be President?

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Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

Op-Ed
Is Ted Cruz a 'natural born Citizen'? Not if you're a constitutional originalist.

http://www.trbimg.com/img-56904b76/t...01/550/550x309
Republican presidential candidates Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz interact during the CNN Republican presidential debate in Las Vegas on Dec. 15.
(Justin Sullivan / Getty Images)


Thomas Lee

Article II of the Constitution states: “No Person except a natural born Citizen . . . shall be eligible to the Office of President.” Donald Trump thinks Sen. Ted Cruz is not a “natural born Citizen” and that he is therefore constitutionally ineligible to be president. Is Trump right?

Cruz was born in 1970 in Calgary, Canada, to a U.S. citizen mother and a Cuban citizen father. As to his Article II status, it's all in how you read the Constitution.

There are three leading theories of how to interpret the Constitution today.

One is textualism: the Constitution means what its words say. The historical context of the words is important when a modern plain meaning is not self-evident.

A second theory, adopted by many liberals, relies on a “living Constitution”: the Constitution means what is most consistent with fundamental constitutional values as applied to present circumstances.

The third theory, championed by many leading conservatives, is originalism: The Constitution means what ordinary people would have understood it to mean at the time it was ratified, which is 1788.

People looking to the Supreme Court to settle the debate once and for all are likely to be disappointed.-


Under either a textualist or a “living Constitution” theory, Cruz is a “natural born Citizen,” eligible to be president; under an originalist view, however, he isn't. It's the conservative theory that would exclude the conservative Cruz from presidential eligibility.

To an originalist, a “natural born Citizen” is a person who is a citizen of the United States under “natural” principles of law in 1788. Two such principles were then in play in the U.S. Jus soli — the law of soil — was the principle that a child was subject or citizen of the sovereign who ruled the land or seas on which the child was born. Jus soli was viewed as a part of the common law of England, which was adopted by the American states. Jus sanguinis — the law of blood — held that a child's citizenship flowed from the parents' allegiance, regardless of place of birth. This principle was prevalent in continental Europe, and in England it was the basis for an exception to jus soli for children born there to foreign ambassadors.

The principle of jus sanguinis in 1788 applied to patrilineal descent only: A person born in a foreign country was viewed as a “natural born Citizen” of his or her father's country. However odious it seems today, a child born of a woman whose citizenship was different from her husband's — much rarer then than today — could not be a “natural born Citizen” of the mother's country. That idea wasn't even considered until 1844 in Victorian England.

The upshot is that to an originalist, someone like Cruz — born in a foreign country (and therefore not a natural born citizen of the United States by jus soli) and to a Cuban citizen father (and therefore not a natural born citizen of the United States by jus sanguinis ) — is not eligible to be president.

http://www.trbimg.com/img-568f15a6/t...08/300/300x169
Hold the 'birther' controversy: Ted Cruz is a natural born American

In a textualist view of the Constitution, historical context is also important because “natural born Citizen” has no modern plain meaning and the words don't appear anywhere else in the Constitution. Textualists, by contrast to originalists, favor written statutes in mining historical context. In this case, two American laws enacted in 1784 and 1790 are applicable, along with older English statutes which use the similar words “natural born subject.”

In 1784, the Maryland Legislature extended “all the Immunities, Rights and Privileges of natural born Citizen” to the Marquis de Lafayette “and his heirs Male forever.” And, in 1790, Congress passed a law stating that “the children of citizens of the United States that may be born beyond Sea, or out of the limits of the United States shall be considered as natural born Citizens.” It didn't specify which parent, mother or father or both, but the background principle of jus sanguinis leads to the conclusion that it referred to American fathers.

The 1790 statute, however, was not intended to address presidential eligibility. Rather, like earlier English statutes that referred to “natural born subjects,” it exempted children born abroad from the need to follow any other procedures (“to naturalize”) in order to be considered citizens. Then in 1940, Congress passed a statute dispensing with the need for a child born abroad to a U.S. citizen mother to naturalize.

Taken all together, these laws would cause a textualist to conclude that Ted Cruz, born in Canada to a U.S. citizen mother in 1970, is a “natural born Citizen” eligible to be president.

Finally, living constitutionalists would interpret “natural born Citizen” in accordance with present circumstances and social conditions. Supreme Court case law is their main source because judicial decisions reflect an accommodation of legal doctrine with contemporary reality.

But the Supreme Court has never directly decided the meaning of “natural born Citizen.” Today, a living constitutionalist would likely regard the ancient, sexist patrilineal rule governing the citizenship of a child born abroad as an anachronism. To a living constitutionalist, anyone born anywhere to a U.S. citizen mother or father would qualify to run for president.

People looking to the Supreme Court to settle the debate once and for all are likely to be disappointed. The federal courts have repeatedly refused to allow voters to bring lawsuits disqualifying presidential candidates on the basis of the “natural born Citizen” clause because voters don't have the proper “standing”— their alleged injury is too generalized to justify a court order of relief.

But voters do have recourse: The ballot box may be the final arbiter of the constitutional meaning of the clause. In other words, if you are an originalist, vote against Cruz because he is ineligible to be president.

It's a neat irony: The most conservative constitutional interpreters must find Cruz ineligible to be president; liberals must grin and bear him. Cruz himself purports to embrace originalism as the correct view of the Constitution. To be faithful to his understanding of what the Constitution means, the senator may have to disqualify himself.

Thomas Lee is a professor of constitutional law and international law at Fordham Law School.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed...110-story.html

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Exactly. Great article, JohnDoe2. Thank you for finding and posting it. The Los Angeles Times, too! Big readership. If Cruz really was a Constitutionalist, he would have never entered the race, neither would Rubio, both lawyers and know better. They just think since Obama got away with it, they should too. Wrong!! Americans won't let that happen again. At least I hope not.

Judy wrote:

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Exactly. Great article, JohnDoe2. Thank you for finding and posting it. The Los Angeles Times, too! Big readership. If Cruz really was a Constitutionalist, he would have never entered the race, neither would Rubio, both lawyers and know better. They just think since Obama got away with it, they should too. Wrong!! Americans won't let that happen again. At least I hope not.

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Exactly what? JohnDoe's article clearly states there are three paths of understanding on this issue according to Op-Ed writer Thomas Lee. One of those paths definitely supports Cruz's eligibility to run for President of the United States. By the way, who is Thomas Lee? Is he an expert in the field of constitutional law?

Harvard scholar: Ted Cruz's citizenship, eligibility for president ‘unsettled’

Liberal law professor Laurence Tribe cited by Donald Trump in his ‘natural-born’ citizenship attacks has questioned Cruz’s own constitutional positions

Ted Cruz: under his position as a constitutional ‘originalist’, he would not be eligible to be president, Laurence tribe said.

Ben Jacobs in Washington
@Bencjacobs

Sunday 10 January 2016 20.48 EST
Last modified on Sunday 10 January 2016 23.55 EST

The legal and constitutional issues around qualification for the presidency on grounds of US citizenship are “murky and unsettled”, according to the scholar cited by Donald Trump in his recent attacks on Ted Cruz.

Trump has sought to cast doubt on whether the senator, who was born in Canada to an American mother and a Cuban father, is a “natural-born US citizen”. In doing so he has referred to the work and words of Laurence Tribe, perhaps the most respected liberal law professor in the country.

Tribe taught both Cruz and Barack Obama at Harvard Law School. He also advised Al Gore in the 2000 Florida recount and has advised Obama’s campaign organisation.

“Despite Sen[ator] Cruz’s repeated statements that the legal/constitutional issues around whether he’s a natural-born citizen are clear and settled,” he told the Guardian by email, “the truth is that they’re murky and unsettled.”

Tribe has said previously that the question of Cruz’s eligibility is “unsettled”. On Sunday, Trump cited that position in an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press, in which he described Tribe “as a constitutional expert, one of the true experts”.

At a rally in Reno, Nevada later on Sunday, the real-estate billionaire, who has said Democrats will sue to stop Cruz running should he win the nomination, described himself as “a PhD in litigation”. Of Cruz’s eligibility, he said: “There is a doubt. We can’t have a doubt.”

Article II, section I, clause V of the US constitution states: “No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President.”

In his emails to the Guardian, Tribe discussed Cruz’s own approach to constitutional issues, noting that under “the kind of judge Cruz says he admires and would appoint to the supreme court – an ‘originalist’ who claims to be bound by the historical meaning of the constitution’s terms at the time of their adoption – Cruz wouldn’t be eligible because the legal principles that prevailed in the 1780s and 90s required that someone be born on US soil to be a ‘natural born’ citizen.”

He added: “Even having two US parents wouldn’t suffice for a genuine originalist. And having just an American mother, as Cruz did, would clearly have been insufficient at a time that made patrilineal descent decisive.

“On the other hand, to the kind of judge that I admire and Cruz abhors – a ‘living constitutionalist’ who believes that the constitution’s meaning evolves with the needs of the time – Cruz would ironically be eligible because it no longer makes sense to be bound by so narrow and strict a definition.”

Tribe said: “There is no single, settled answer. And our supreme court has never addressed the issue.”

Trump, who trails Cruz in polls in Iowa, first raised the issue last week. Cruz has since cited a bipartisan Harvard Law Review article by two former solicitor generals, Neal Katyal and Paul Clement, to back his contention that he is a natural-born citizen. Some of his rivals have pushed back; the Kentucky senator and presidential rival Rand Paul and Arizona senator John McCain, the 2008 candidate, have declined to support him.

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee in 2012, tweeted on Friday that Cruz was indeed a “natural-born citizen”.

Tribe, who became a hated figure to many on the right thanks to his role in derailing the supreme court nomination of Robert Bork in 1987, gave legal advice to McCain when similar “natural-born citizen” questions arose in 2008. McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone, to two Americans.

Working with Ted Olsen, a former solicitor general in the George W Bush administration, Tribe concluded: “[McCain’s] birth on a US military base within a territory controlled by the US from 1903 to 1979 … under a treaty with Panama probably (although not certainly) qualified him as a natural born citizen, especially because both his parents were US citizens at the time.”

On Sunday, he wrote: “That situation differed greatly from the one Sen[ator] Cruz finds himself in.”

Asked if he was surprised by Trump’s use of his name, Tribe wrote: “What I find surreal isn’t that a Republican presidential candidate would favorably cite my legal conclusions, but that anyone should find that phenomenon so shocking.

“The fact that I’m a lifelong liberal and a registered Democrat who taught constitutional law to President Obama (and, by the way, to Chief Justice Roberts and Senator Cruz) makes my citation by a likely Republican nominee for president surprising only because our political divisions have become so profound and so paralyzing that people no longer believe in the possibility of disinterested legal research.

“That’s really sad.”

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2...izen-president

An "originalist" would rely on the citizenship of the Father, NOT the Mother. At that time everything was based on the Fathers lineage. The following link explains the ties between The Constitution, Vattel, and "Natural Born Citizen"
http://www.newswithviews.com/Publius/huldah110.htm

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Originally Posted by MW

Exactly what? JohnDoe's article clearly states there are three paths of understanding on this issue according to Op-Ed writer Thomas Lee. One of those paths definitely supports Cruz's eligibility to run for President of the United States. By the way, who is Thomas Lee? Is he an expert in the field of constitutional law?

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. . . Fordham Law School constitutional law professor Thomas Lee informed me that the question of whether Cruz is a “natural born citizen” can be answered with two words: “It depends.”

Lee, who was an editor of the Harvard Law Review and clerked for Supreme Court Justice David Souter . . .

from: Hey Supreme Court, Please Settle This Ted Cruz Birther Thing
​
@ Is Ted Cruz eligible to be President?

JohnDoe2, would you mind editing your post above to delete "Judy wrote", since what is shown is not mine, but MW's. Thanks.

Now Marco Rubio has his own 'birther' problem

Cruz brings up Trump's Scottish mother in rowdy 'birther' fight

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Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

Cruz brings up Trump's Scottish mother in rowdy 'birther' fight

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Trump's mother was a citizen as was his father when Trump was born. The rule which Ted now seems to know is born in the US to two US citizen parents, natural born or naturalized. Ted lost that debate issue along with most others, and that truth will come out because the lawyers and scholars who know the meaning of natural born citizen will be writing about it from now until well beyond the Iowa caucus. Cruz is now "caught on video" acknowledging he knows the law (Trump has never said anything about parental citizenship), so Cruz fell straight into the trap and sunk himself.

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Originally Posted by Judy

Trump's mother was a citizen as was his father when Trump was born. The rule which Ted now seems to know is born in the US to two US citizen parents, natural born or naturalized. Ted lost that debate issue along with most others, and that truth will come out because the lawyers and scholars who know the meaning of natural born citizen will be writing about it from now until well beyond the Iowa caucus. Cruz is now "caught on video" acknowledging he knows the law (Trump has never said anything about parental citizenship), so Cruz fell straight into the trap and sunk himself.

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That's all a matter of conjecture and your personal opinion. Ted Cruz was doing nothing more than making a point concerning one of the arguments against his qualification. Furthermore, many that watched the debate actually thought Cruz won the debate as evidence by:

http://www.alipac.us/f9/fox-news-foc...g-news-327458/

If those 27 South Carolina residents feel Cruz won, I'm sure there are many others throughout the country that feel the same way. Personally, I think both men gave a fair account of themselves.