Thread: Is Ted Cruz eligible to be President?

ELECTION 2016

Cruz and Rubio: Neither is eligible

Exclusive: Larry Klayman applies definition of natural born citizen Obama skirted

Published: 1/8/16 Larry Klayman About | Email | Archive Larry Klayman is a former Justice Department prosecutor and the founder of Judicial Watch and Freedom Watch. His latest book is "Whores: Why and How I Came to Fight the Establishment."



Having established that President Barack Hussein Obama is a Muslim under Shariah law thanks to his Muslim father and by virtue of his actions, and thus as the winner of the “Muslim of the Year” award, it now appears that our ineligible “leader” can be more precisely defined as a Shiite.
This week, Obama again failed to back up and defend our oil-rich ally Saudi Arabia, which is a Sunni Arab nation, when the terrorist Islamic Iranian government sponsored the setting afire of the Kingdom’s embassy in Tehran. This comes on the heels of nuclear missile tests and other acts of provocation by Obama’s mullah brethren in Iran. Clearly, the “Muslim of the Year” has shown his true colors; he is not only Muslim, but in his heart a Shiite. No wonder he so eagerly bowed down to the ayatollahs in Tehran and deceitfully and illegally rammed through a so-called treaty paving the way for these Islamic maniacs to acquire nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them to the United States, Western Europe and of course Israel. The Shiite lover’s dream of an Islamic caliphate is, today, on the brink of reality.


In a predictable twist of fate, however, the more novel story this week is the issue of who is a “natural born citizen” eligible under our Constitution to run for, be elected and serve as president of the United States. First raised with regard to the Muslim of the Year in 2008, “eligibility” has reared its head yet again. Long since buried when this requirement was applied to our president – indeed courts have refused to address the issue in several cases I and others filed – not surprisingly it has now taken on public and legal interest now that two white guys, Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, both born to only one citizen parent at the time of birth and in the case of Cruz also born in Canada and until recently holding dual citizenship, are in the spotlight of a presidential primary election. As any reader to this column and WND knows, “natural born citizen” is defined thanks to the Supreme Court case of Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1875) and Emmerich de Vattel’s Law of Nations as a person born in the United States or its territories to two citizen parents. The framers and thus the Supreme Court look to this codified treatise to define crucial terms in the Constitution.
Cruz is not a natural born citizen since he was born in Canada to an American mother and a Cuban-Canadian father, and until last year was a dual Canadian-American citizen. In 2014 he conveniently renounced his Canadian citizenship in the nick of time to run for the presidency. Rubio, on the other hand, was born in the states, but his parents were not citizens at the time of his birth. Thus, these Cuban-American senators are technically ineligible to be president.
While I really like Cruz and see him as a true patriot – I feel otherwise with regard to Rubio who is in my view a two-faced phony – it is indeed ironic that they would now undergo intense scrutiny by Democrats and some Republicans alike such as Sen. John McCain, who hates Cruz, while our black Muslim president effectively escaped all scrutiny, despite having likely been born in Kenya to only one American parent. We now have confirmation that indeed the concept of affirmative action is embedded in our living Constitution.
Donald Trump is of course the current political benefactor of this debate, as Hillary Clinton initially was in 2008 when she ran in the Democratic primary for president against Obama. But the bigger consideration is the reason the framers inserted the “natural born citizen” requirement into the Constitution. Except for the offices of president and vice president, all other references in the Constitution refer only to “citizen.” Thus, there has to be a difference in legal interpretation.
The reason is that our framers, most of whom were grandfathered out of the “natural born citizenship” requirement given their recent immigration from England, realized that the newly formed nation would encompass many persons with dual loyalties, those whose families owned land and wealth and had close relatives in the British kingdom. They thus wanted our president and vice president to be one step removed from foreign influences.
Until the election and king-like rule of the Shiite Muslim of the Year, the issue of natural born citizen was merely theoretical. But with the favoring of Islam and foreign interests at every turn of his presidency, to the detriment of the United States, we now can see why the framers inserted this into the Constitution.
For Sens. Cruz and Rubio, it is too bad they were not also born to black mothers or fathers. If they had been so fortunate, like Shiite Obama, they may have escaped scrutiny. But for these Cuban-American pale faces, their chances to win the Republican nomination for president is likely doomed. By my estimate, there is roughly a third of the Republican electorate which knows and cares enough about the Constitution to cause them to vote for other GOP presidential candidates. And, this makes The Donald the likely winner at this point of the primary season.

http://www.wnd.com/2016/01/cruz-and-...r-is-eligible/

Why experts say Cruz is eligible for the presidency Author: Leo Barber ; Last update: 11 January , 2016

10:16:32 The Comment http://bsccomment.com/2016/01/11/why...residency.html

In an interview with The Washington Post on Tuesday, Trump said Cruz's birthplace-Canada-could be a "precarious" issue for the Republican Party. Trump said. "You have to get rid of them first, I like one thing at a time". "I'd hate to see something like that get in his way", Trump said. Trump - who four years ago was demanding to see President Barack Obama's birth certificate from Hawaii - dusted off the tactic once again, hitting Cruz over his Canadian birth in a Washington Post interview Tuesday night in MA.

"The politics of it would be very, very different if a bunch of lawyers or bankers were coming across the Rio Grande... or if a bunch of people with journalism degrees were coming over and driving down the wages in the press", Cruz says in the spot. Legal scholars agree that Cruz meets the Constitution's natural-born citizenship requirement, though it is untested in the courts. It's a claim supported by centuries of legal precedent: "The Naturalization Act of 1790 expanded the class of citizens at birth to include children born overseas of citizen mothers as long as the father had at least been resident in the United States at some point", they write. But Trump refrained from repeating comments he made just prior to the evening rally, insinuating GOP rival Ted Cruz would face years of lawsuits if elected president, due to his Canadian birth.

During a campaign stop in Rock Rapids, Iowa, the Texas senator dismissed Trump's recent comments as "political noise". Now he's questioning whether the Canadian-born Texas senator is even eligible for the White House. Cruz's mother, Eleanor Darragh, was born in DE, lived most of her life in the United States, and gave birth to little Rafael Edward Cruz in her 30s. While Mr Trump leads most polls, several surveys show Mr Cruz is the top choice of likely Republican voters. "I hear it was checked out by every attorney and every which way and I understand Ted is in fine shape", Trump told ABC News last September of his rival's constitutional eligibility because of his birthplace. In 1964, Barry Goldwater, who was born in the US territory of Arizona before it became a state, won the Republican nomination but lost to Lyndon B. Johnson by the largest margin in history at the time. Cruz has avoided engaging with Trump's critiques so far. Trump is afraid of being embarrassed by Cruz in Iowa.

"I will expand the map", Trump said, singling out Pennsylvania and NY as states where he can put his theory to the test. Trump is clearly toying with a dead-horse issue.

The Comment http://bsccomment.com/2016/01/11/why...residency.html

Originally Posted by MW

Correct about what? The way I read the post is there are three different views on the issue.

Yeah, but two of those views are wrong.

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.

@Bencjacobs
Sunday 10 January 2016 20.48 EST
Last modified on Monday 11 January 201611.27 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.


Ted Cruz insists he is a natural-born citizen after new Donald Trump attack

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.

In Iowa, among evangelicals and renegade Republicans, Ted Cruz is storming to a caucus victory. But will the White House be a miracle too far?

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

Rand Paul: Up To SCOTUS If 'Natural-Born Canadian' Cruz Can Be President

AP Photo / Jim Cole

By TIERNEY SNEED Published JANUARY 11, 2016, 4:54 PM EST 1026 Views

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) fanned the Ted Cruz-birther flames yet again, telling Fox News Monday that the Texas senator is a "natural-born Canadian" and that it's up to the courts to decide whether Cruz is eligible for president.

"Cruz is a natural-born Canadian," Paul said, according to CNN. "He was naturally born there.

The question is, can you be natural-born Canadian and natural-born American at the same time?

Maybe, but I think the courts will have to decide it, because it's never really been decided."

"For traditional citizenship it always has been (your parent), but the only part of the Constitution that says 'natural-born' is with regard to the President. So it appears to be a unique qualification and most people have interpreted they had to be born in the U.S. until recently," Paul said on Fox. "So I think eventually the Supreme Court will probably have to decide it."

Last week, Paul said that Cruz "is qualified and would make the cut to be prime minister of Canada."

The question of Cruz's Canadian birth -- he was born to a U.S. mother in Canada, which at the time, legally made him a U.S. citizen -- has come to the forefront of the 2016 race after Cruz's chief rival Donald Trump called it it a "a very precarious" situation.

Plenty of GOP candidates and Republicans have defended Cruz's eligibility, but Trump and others are suggesting that if he becomes the nominee Democrats will sue to block his candidacy.

Cruz has dismissed the idea that he is not a natural-born citizen as "political noise.”

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewir...rther-canadian

Originally Posted by patbrunz

Yeah, but two of those views are wrong.

That would be a matter of opinion.

Originally Posted by imblest

If Obama was eligible, then we'd be shooting ourselves in the foot to say that Cruz is not. You just don't want anyone but Trump to be President so you are shooting down everyone else who is running. What if Trump doesn't get the nomination and Cruz does? Will you vote Hillary instead of Cruz?

Obama was not eligible to be President.
Unfortunately, the challenges filed in numerous courts across the country were too late as Obama had already taken office.

Americans need to start vetting US Senate candidates and incumbents. Check their backgrounds more thoroughly. If the US Senate is to be a leap-frog to the White House from the Senate as so many it seems want it to be, then these Senators all need to be born in the US to 2 US citizens. I'm not suggesting changing the law or the Constitution, only using our power of the vote to make sure they are.

Law Prof: Cruz Is Not A Natural Born Citizen And Thus Can't Be President
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ByTierney Sneed PublishedJanuary 12, 2016, 1:59 PM EST 34455 views

The Washington Post published an op-ed Tuesday by a constitutional law professor who asserts that due to his Canadian birth, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is not a natural born American citizen and thus is ineligible under the Constitution to be president.

"Let me be clear: I am not a so-called birther. I am a legal historian," Mary Brigid McManamon -- a constitutional law professor at Widener University’s Delaware Law School -- wrote.

She joins Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe in raising concerns that Cruz may not meet the "natural born citizen" requirement for presidency under the Constitution. She previously wrote a paper about the topic in 2014.

In the Washington Post op-ed, McManamon argued that if one turns to the "common law" definition of "natural born citizen," he or she will find that 18th century English jurist William Blackstone defined the term as a "born within the dominions of the crown of England" and that U.S. founding father James Madison called birth place "the most certain criterion" of allegiance.

She acknowledged that other legal experts -- specifically former solicitors general Neal Katyal and Paul Clement -- have interpreted "natural born citizen" to mean anyone who was a U.S. citizen at birth, but criticized that interpretation because it depends on "radical 18th-century British statutes."

Cruz was born to an American mother in Canada in 1970. The debate over his eligibility for president was inflamed when Donald Trump made it an issue on the campaign trail.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewir...uz-citizenship

Ted Cruz is not eligible to be president

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) holds a town hall at Praise Community Church in Mason City, Iowa, on Friday. (Patrick Semansky/Associated Press)

By Mary Brigid McManamon January 12 at 11:24 AM

Mary Brigid McManamon is a constitutional law professor at Widener University’s Delaware Law School.

Donald Trump is actually right about something: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) is not a natural-born citizen and therefore is not eligible to be president or vice president of the United States.

The Constitution provides that “No person except a natural born Citizen . . . shall be eligible to the Office of President.” The concept of “natural born” comes from common law, and it is that law the Supreme Court has said we must turn to for the concept’s definition. On this subject, common law is clear and unambiguous. The 18th-century English jurist William Blackstone, the preeminent authority on it, declared natural-born citizens are “such as are born within the dominions of the crown of England,” while aliens are “such as are born out of it.” The key to this division is the assumption of allegiance to one’s country of birth. The Americans who drafted the Constitution adopted this principle for the United States. James Madison, known as the “father of the Constitution,” stated, “It is an established maxim that birth is a criterion of allegiance. . . . [And] place is the most certain criterion; it is what applies in the United States.”

Cruz is, of course, a U.S. citizen. As he was born in Canada, he is not natural-born. His mother, however, is an American, and Congress has provided by statute for the naturalization of children born abroad to citizens. Because of the senator’s parentage, he did not have to follow the lengthy naturalization process that aliens without American parents must undergo. Instead, Cruz was naturalized at birth. This provision has not always been available. For example, there were several decades in the 19th century when children of Americans born abroad were not given automatic naturalization.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump hammered away again at fellow candidate Ted Cruz over his citizenship, questioning Cruz's eligibility to be president. (Reuters)

Article I of the Constitution grants Congress the power to naturalize an alien — that is, Congress may remove an alien’s legal disabilities, such as not being allowed to vote. But Article II of the Constitution expressly adopts the legal status of the natural-born citizen and requires that a president possess that status. However we feel about allowing naturalized immigrants to reach for the stars, the Constitution must be amended before one of them can attain the office of president. Congress simply does not have the power to convert someone born outside the United States into a natural-born citizen.

Let me be clear: I am not a so-called birther. I am a legal historian. President Obama is without question eligible for the office he serves. The distinction between the president and Cruz is simple: The president was born within the United States, and the senator was born outside of it. That is a distinction with a difference.

In this election cycle, numerous pundits have declared that Cruz is eligible to be president. They rely on a supposed consensus among legal experts. This notion appears to emanate largely from a recent comment in the Harvard Law Review Forum by former solicitors general Neal Katyal and Paul Clement. In trying to put the question of who is a natural-born citizen to rest, however, the authors misunderstand, misapply and ignore the relevant law.

First, although Katyal and Clement correctly declare that the Supreme Court has recognized that common law is useful to explain constitutional terms, they ignore that law. Instead, they rely on three radical 18th-century British statutes. While it is understandable for a layperson to make such a mistake, it is unforgivable for two lawyers of such experience to equate the common law with statutory law. The common law was unequivocal: Natural-born subjects had to be born in English territory. The then-new statutes were a revolutionary departure from that law.

Second, the authors appropriately ask the question whether the Constitution includes the common-law definition or the statutory approach. But they fail to examine any U.S. sources for the answer. Instead, Katyal and Clement refer to the brand-new British statutes as part of a “longstanding tradition” and conclude that the framers followed that law because they “would have been intimately familiar with these statutes.” But when one reviews all the relevant American writings of the early period, including congressional debates, well-respected treatises and Supreme Court precedent, it becomes clear that the common-law definition was accepted in the United States, not the newfangled British statutory approach.

Third, Katyal and Clement put much weight on the first U.S. naturalization statute, enacted in 1790. Because it contains the phrase “natural born,” they infer that such citizens must include children born abroad to American parents. The first Congress, however, had no such intent. The debates on the matter reveal that the congressmen were aware that such children were not citizens and had to be naturalized; hence, Congress enacted a statute to provide for them. Moreover, that statute did not say the children were natural born, only that they should “be considered as” such. Finally, as soon as Madison, then a member of Congress, was assigned to redraft the statute in 1795, he deleted the phrase “natural born,” and it has never reappeared in a naturalization statute.

When the Examiner's Al Weaver posed a question about Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tx.) being born in a foreign country, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said it's a potential problem for Cruz's presidential campaign and it's a question that needs to be answered.

When discussing the meaning of a constitutional term, it is important to go beyond secondary sources and look to the law itself. And on this issue, the law is clear: The framers of the Constitution required the president of the United States to be born in the United States.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...12d_story.html