I didn't say Trump was stupid for bringing it up. I said the birthers were stupid for believing it. Duh!
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Ted Cruz’s birther problem grows as more constitutional law scholars say he can’t be president
- Thread starter Zaac
- Start date
FYI
http://conservativetribune.com/rush...tm_content=2016-01-16&utm_campaign=manualpost
BREAKING: Rush Limbaugh Says Only 1 Candidate Can Beat Donald Trump
On his nationally syndicated radio show Friday, conservative icon Rush Limbaugh said that he believed only one man would be able to beat billionaire real estate mogul and media figure Donald Trump in the GOP primaries: Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.
As evidence, Limbaugh pointed to a recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, which showed Donald Trump consolidating his lead over the Republican field — especially establishment candidates.
“Of all the Republicans in the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, while it acknowledges that Donald Trump is adding to his lead, there is one Republican, according to the people polled in their responses here, there’s one candidate who could beat Trump for the nomination, in the eyes of Republican primary voters, and that’s Ted Cruz,” Limbaugh said.
“If you tell the same respondents, ‘Okay, it’s a contest between Trump and Cruz. Who do you want?’ Cruz beats Trump 51-43,” Limbaugh continued.
“Now, I don’t have to tell you that that little tidbit of information is not something that’s causing them to do handstands and flips at the GOP,” he added.
I don't see why it's soooooooooo stupid to realize that the Constitution never defines what it means by "natural born". All I am saying is that if you go by the Vattel definition of "natural born", it means American soil, two citizen parents. Now I realize that some contend that there is only two types of citizens, naturalized ones and natural borns but there's no distinguishing natural born from native born and you could say the framers of the Constitution would have said native born if that's what they meant.
This act passed Congress in the late 1790s and it defined natural born as Vattel did:
http://rs6.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=001/llsl001.db&recNum=226
But just a couple of years later, Congress amended this bill that said you could be born on foreign soil to TWO American citizens and still be natural born. McCain was born in an American military base and Romney was born in Mexico to two American citizens so they would be considered natural born by the amended bill. And Obama was born on American soil, so he is at least native born but we are in uncharted waters with the Cruz situation and SCOTUS could rule against him.
This act passed Congress in the late 1790s and it defined natural born as Vattel did:
http://rs6.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=001/llsl001.db&recNum=226
But just a couple of years later, Congress amended this bill that said you could be born on foreign soil to TWO American citizens and still be natural born. McCain was born in an American military base and Romney was born in Mexico to two American citizens so they would be considered natural born by the amended bill. And Obama was born on American soil, so he is at least native born but we are in uncharted waters with the Cruz situation and SCOTUS could rule against him.
poncho
Well-Known Member
Was I not the first to bring up this issue with Cruz?
“I’ve done a lot of historical research on it, and so have a lot of other people, and the best evidence seems to be that what they meant in 1788 was something more than just citizen from birth,” he said. “They actually meant a citizen whose birth was sort of natural, not in a biological sense but in the sense of connection to the land. The idea was, that it was something that Congress couldn’t change, unlike the naturalization process, which Congress has monkeyed around with all the time. I mean, for example, in 1934, the first time it said, you can be a citizen who doesn’t need to get naturalized as long as your mom was an American citizen. And that’s ultimately the basis on which Cruz has to rely. The funny thing is, that the kind of guy Cruz is, he’s always been this way. When he was my student he was this way. He’s always said the Constitution always means the same thing that it meant when it was adopted. That’s why he made this funny joke to Trump, you know, saying, the Constitution didn’t change since last September. Well, he thinks it didn’t change since 1788 when it comes to gays and, you know, women and other things. But when it comes to his own ambition, he’s suddenly becomes what he accuses me of being, and it’s a pretty true accusation, a judicial activist. That’s not the guy he is normally.”
http://www.breitbart.com/video/2016/01/15/tribe-cruz-a-constitutional-opportunist-hypocrite/
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Zaac
Well-Known Member
Yep.
There is just something commonsense wrong with taking the Constitution to mean anything other than this. I mean seriously. Why on earth do folks think it would have been so important for the founding fathers to not have wanted someone born in another country to be eligible for the Presidency? It's a no brainer.
The Constitution directly addresses the minimum qualifications necessary to serve as President. In addition to requiring thirty-five years of age and fourteen years of residency, the Constitution limits the presidency to “a natural born Citizen.” (U.S. Const. art. II, § 1, cl. 5.)
All the sources routinely used to interpret the Constitution confirm that the phrase “natural born Citizen” has a specific meaning: namely, someone who was a U.S. citizen at birth with no need to go through a naturalization proceeding at some later time. And Congress has made equally clear from the time of the framing of the Constitution to the current day that, subject to certain residency requirements on the parents, someone born to a U.S. citizen parent (singular) generally becomes a U.S. citizen without regard to whether the birth takes place in Canada, the Canal Zone, or the continental United States. (See, e.g., 8 U.S.C. § 1401(g) (2012); Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, Pub. L. No. 82-414, § 303, 66 Stat. 163, 236–37; Act of May 24, 1934, Pub. L. No. 73-250, 48 Stat. 797.)
The early US was coming out from under British Common Law and understood legal terms in the context of British Common Law. As to the British practice, laws in force in the 1700s recognized that children born outside of the British Empire to subjects of the Crown were subjects themselves and explicitly used “natural born” to encompass such children. (See United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649, 655–72 (1898).)
These statutes provided that children born abroad to subjects of the British Empire were “natural-born Subjects . . . to all Intents, Constructions, and Purposes whatsoever.” (7 Ann., c. 5, § 3 (1708); see also British Nationality Act, 1730, 4 Geo. 2, c. 21.)
The Framers, of course, would have been intimately familiar with these statutes and the way they used terms like “natural born,” since the statutes were binding law in the colonies before the Revolutionary War. They were also well documented in Blackstone’s Commentaries, (See 1 William Blackstone,Commentaries *354–63. a text widely circulated and read by the Framers and routinely invoked in interpreting the Constitution.)
The original meaning of “natural born Citizen” also comports with what we know of the Framers’ purpose in including this language in the Constitution. The phrase first appeared in the draft Constitution shortly after George Washington received a letter from John Jay, the future first Chief Justice of the United States, suggesting:
[W]hether it would not be wise & seasonable to provide a . . . strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government; and to declare expressly that the Command in chief of the american [sic] army shall not be given to, nor devolve on, any but a natural born Citizen. (Letter from John Jay to George Washington (July 25, 1787), in 3 The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, at 61 (Max Farrand ed., 1911).)
As recounted by Justice Joseph Story in his Commentaries on the Constitution, the purpose of the natural born Citizen clause was thus to “cut off all chances for ambitious foreigners, who might otherwise be intriguing for the office; and interpose a barrier against those corrupt interferences of foreign governments in executive elections.” (Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States § 1473, at 333 (1833).
The Framers did not fear such machinations from those who were U.S. citizens from birth just because of the happenstance of a foreign birthplace. Indeed, John Jay’s own children were born abroad while he served on diplomatic assignments, and it would be absurd to conclude that Jay proposed to exclude his own children, as foreigners of dubious loyalty, from presidential eligibility. (See Michael Nelson, Constitutional Qualifications for President, 17 Presidential Stud. Q. 383, 396 (1987).)
In the 1790 Naturalization Act, the act provided that “children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond the sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural-born citizens.”
A March 2015 Harvard Law Review article said “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.”
The McCarran-Walter Act, of 1952, was the controlling law when Ted Cruz was born. A summery of the law states the following requirements:
One parent is a US citizen at the time of birth.
The parents are married at the time of birth.
The citizen parent spent at least 10 years resident in the US prior to the birth.
At least 5 of those years were after his or her 14th birthday (if a naturalized citizen).
Eleanor Darragh, mother of Ted Cruz, was raised in Delaware, graduated from a Catholic High School in the U.S., as well as Rice University, and was 35 years old when Ted was born, so clearly she meets the residency requirements.
This whole discussion is a no-brainer, and is an unfortunate commentary on the horrible lack of knowledge of many US voters.
poncho
Well-Known Member
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 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/opin...84a7d0-b7af-11e5-99f3-184bc379b12d_story.html
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 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/opin...84a7d0-b7af-11e5-99f3-184bc379b12d_story.html
Zaac
Well-Known Member
ya, I hear you, TCassidy but I still don't see what's so stupid about worrying over an issue constitutional attorneys (like Cruz himself) can't agree on. Trump or some other candidate in the race does have "standing", and it bothers me that the Chief Justice is who he is - a GOPe man all the way.
What about what this moonbat Larry Tribe has to say on this issue?:
“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.”
What if SCOTUS rules that Cruz isn't NBC in, say, this August. and then the GOP has to appoint another candidate and they go with their pet Jeb Bush?
What about what this moonbat Larry Tribe has to say on this issue?:
“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.”
What if SCOTUS rules that Cruz isn't NBC in, say, this August. and then the GOP has to appoint another candidate and they go with their pet Jeb Bush?
What if Christmas falls on September 9th this year? Or New Years day on July 38th?
The law (The McCarran-Walter Act of 1952) clearly says one parent was a US citizen at the time of birth. The parents are married at the time of birth. The citizen parent spent at least 10 years resident in the US prior to the birth. At least 5 of those years were after his or her 14th birthday (if a naturalized citizen).
The above cited law is a clarification of the 1790 Naturalization Act, which provided that “children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond the sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural-born citizens.”
Both codified laws use, and clarify, the term natural-born citizens. Period. That is the end of it. It is not only codified law, it is also case law. It has already been decided. Case closed. The birthers lost. Unfortunately most of them are too dumb to know they lost!
Zaac
Well-Known Member
It's on now!!! If Limbaugh is trumpeting it, then it will be just a matter of time before Hannity does. And Trump will go postal!
I still think you should have to resign any public office outside of the Office of Vice President if you want to run for President.
Okay, sorry to seem obtuse, but what you're saying is that the scenario where SCOTUS rules that Cruz is not NBC is improbable?
I hope you are right but in recent times, SCOTUS tries to throw out old laws on a whim - I know Cruz was an American citizen under the laws of 1952 until today but they could go political again. It would be interesting to see how Scalia (Mr. Original Intent) would rule but under the current laws, Cruz does qualify for sure. Hope ruling against him is as unlikely as you seem to think it is, because Cruz would make a great candidate and president.
I hope you are right but in recent times, SCOTUS tries to throw out old laws on a whim - I know Cruz was an American citizen under the laws of 1952 until today but they could go political again. It would be interesting to see how Scalia (Mr. Original Intent) would rule but under the current laws, Cruz does qualify for sure. Hope ruling against him is as unlikely as you seem to think it is, because Cruz would make a great candidate and president.
poncho
Well-Known Member
One universal point most all early publicists agreed on was natural-born citizen must mean one who is a citizen by no act of law. If a person owes their citizenship to some act of law (naturalization for example), they cannot be considered a natural-born citizen. This leads us to defining natural-born citizen under the laws of nature – laws the founders recognized and embraced.
Under the laws of nature, every child born requires no act of law to establish the fact the child inherits through nature his/her father’s citizenship as well as his name (or even his property) through birth. This law of nature is also recognized by law of nations. Sen. Howard said the citizenship clause under the Fourteenth Amendment was by virtue of “natural law and national law.”
The advantages of Natural Law is competing allegiances between nations are not claimed, or at least with those nations whose custom is to not make citizens of other countries citizens without their consent. Under Sec. 1992 of U.S. Revised Statutes (1866) made clear other nation’s citizens would not be claimed: “All persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are declared to be citizens of the United States.”
Rep. John A. Bingham commenting on Section 1992 said it means “every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen.” (Cong. Globe, 39th, 1st Sess., 1291 (1866))
Bingham had asserted the same thing in 1862 as well:
< snip >
UPDATE: In regards to questions about the citizenship of the mother: Mothers citizenship rarely ever influenced the citizenship of their children except in certain situations such as the father dying before the child was born or when the identity of the father was unknown.
http://www.federalistblog.us/2008/11/natural-born_citizen_defined/
Under the laws of nature, every child born requires no act of law to establish the fact the child inherits through nature his/her father’s citizenship as well as his name (or even his property) through birth. This law of nature is also recognized by law of nations. Sen. Howard said the citizenship clause under the Fourteenth Amendment was by virtue of “natural law and national law.”
The advantages of Natural Law is competing allegiances between nations are not claimed, or at least with those nations whose custom is to not make citizens of other countries citizens without their consent. Under Sec. 1992 of U.S. Revised Statutes (1866) made clear other nation’s citizens would not be claimed: “All persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are declared to be citizens of the United States.”
Rep. John A. Bingham commenting on Section 1992 said it means “every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen.” (Cong. Globe, 39th, 1st Sess., 1291 (1866))
Bingham had asserted the same thing in 1862 as well:
< snip >
UPDATE: In regards to questions about the citizenship of the mother: Mothers citizenship rarely ever influenced the citizenship of their children except in certain situations such as the father dying before the child was born or when the identity of the father was unknown.
http://www.federalistblog.us/2008/11/natural-born_citizen_defined/
Zaac
Well-Known Member
This is borderline stupid. There are 300+ million people in this country and these parties can't find a group of candidates who don't have this problem.
Why don't the parties just define natural born as you being born on US soil so that this foolishness will stop? If they decide that neither party will nominate a person not born on US soil, the problem goes away. If you are not born IN this country, or were not a resident of this country when Article 2 passed, then you are NOT eligible to be President.
Why don't the parties just define natural born as you being born on US soil so that this foolishness will stop? If they decide that neither party will nominate a person not born on US soil, the problem goes away. If you are not born IN this country, or were not a resident of this country when Article 2 passed, then you are NOT eligible to be President.
poncho
Well-Known Member
How about we just say . . . "If a person owes their citizenship to some act of law (naturalization for example), they cannot be considered a natural-born citizen."