WE’RE ALL RUTH BADER GINSBURG NOW – Ann Coulter
If Ted Cruz is a “natural born citizen,” eligible to be president, what was all the fuss about Obama being born in Kenya? No one disputed that Obama’s mother was a U.S. Citizen.
Cruz was born in Canada to an American citizen mother and an alien father. If he’s eligible to be president, then so was Obama — even if he’d been born in Kenya.
As with most constitutional arguments, whether or not Cruz is a “natural born citizen” under the Constitution apparently comes down to whether you support Cruz for president. (Or, for liberals, whether you think U.S. citizenship is a worthless thing that ought to be extended to every person on the planet.)
Forgetting how corrupt constitutional analysis had become, I briefly believed lawyers who assured me that Cruz was a “natural born citizen,” eligible to run for president, and “corrected” myself in a single tweet three years ago. That tweet’s made quite a stir!
But the Constitution is the Constitution, and Cruz is not a “natural born citizen.” (Never let the kids at Kinko’s do your legal research.)
I said so long before Trump declared for president, back when Cruz was still my guy — as lovingly captured on tape last April by the Obama birthers (www.birtherreport.com/2015/04/shocker-anti-birther-ann-coulter-goes.html).
The Constitution says: “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.”
The phrase “natural born” is a legal term of art that goes back to Calvin’s Case, in the British Court of Common Pleas, reported in 1608 by Lord Coke. The question before the court was whether Calvin — a Scot — could own land in England, a right permitted only to English subjects.
The court ruled that because Calvin was born after the king of Scotland had added England to his realm, Calvin was born to the king of both realms and had all the rights of an Englishman.
Relying on English common law for the meaning of “natural born,” the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly held that “the acquisition of citizenship by being born abroad of American parents” was left to Congress “in the exercise of the power conferred by the Constitution to establish an uniform rule of naturalization.” (U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898); Rogers v. Bellei (1971); Zivotofsky v. Kerry (2015), Justice Thomas, concurring.)
A child born to American parents outside of U.S. territory may be a citizen the moment he is born — but only by “naturalization,” i.e., by laws passed by Congress. If Congress has to write a law to make you a citizen, you’re not “natural born.”
Because Cruz’s citizenship comes from the law, not the Constitution, as late as 1934, he would not have had “any conceivable claim to United States citizenship. For more than a century and a half, no statute was of assistance. Maternal citizenship afforded no benefit” — as the Supreme Court put it in Rogers v. Bellei (1971).
That would make no sense if Cruz were a “natural born citizen” under the Constitution. But as the Bellei Court said: “Persons not born in the United States acquire citizenship by birth only as provided by Acts of Congress.” (There’s an exception for the children of ambassadors, but Cruz wasn’t that.)
So Cruz was born a citizen — under our naturalization laws — but is not a “natural born citizen” — under our Constitution.
I keep reading the arguments in favor of Cruz being a “natural born citizen,” but don’t see any history, any Blackstone Commentaries, any common law or Supreme Court cases.
One frequently cited article in the Harvard Law Review cites the fact that the “U.S. Senate unanimously agreed that Senator McCain was eligible for the presidency.”
Sen. McCain probably was natural born — but only because he was born on a U.S. military base to a four-star admiral in the U.S. Navy, and thus is analogous to the ambassador’s child described in Calvin’s Case. (Sorry, McCain haters — oh wait! That’s me!)
But a Senate resolution — even one passed “unanimously”! — is utterly irrelevant. As Justice Antonin Scalia has said, the court’s job is to ascertain “objective law,” not determine “some kind of social consensus,” which I believe is the job of the judges on “American Idol.” (On the other hand, if Congress has the power to define constitutional terms, how about a resolution declaring that The New York Times is not “speech”?)
Mostly, the Cruz partisans confuse being born a citizen with being a “natural born citizen.” This is constitutional illiteracy. “Natural born” is a legal term of art. A retired judge who plays a lot of tennis is an active judge, but not an “active judge” in legal terminology.
The best argument for Cruz being a natural born citizen is that in 1790, the first Congress passed a law that provided: “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.”
Except the problem is, neither that Congress, nor any Congress for the next 200 years or so, actually treated them like natural born citizens.
As the Supreme Court said in Bellei, a case about the citizenship of a man born in Italy to a native-born American mother and an Italian father: “It is evident that Congress felt itself possessed of the power to grant citizenship to the foreign born and at the same time to impose qualifications and conditions for that citizenship.”
The most plausible interpretation of the 1790 statute is that Congress was saying the rights of naturalized citizens born abroad are the same as the rights of the natural born — except the part about not being natural born.
Does that sound odd? It happens to be exactly what the Supreme Court said in Schneider v. Rusk (1964): “We start from the premise that the rights of citizenship of the native born and of the naturalized person are of the same dignity, and are coextensive. The only difference drawn by the Constitution is that only the ‘natural born’ citizen is eligible to be president. (Article II, Section 1)”
Unless we’re all Ruth Bader Ginsburg now, and interpret the Constitution to mean whatever we want it to mean, Cruz is not a “natural born citizen.”
It all depends on who’s side is going to gain something. Situation ethics, don’t ya know?
I’m thinking maybe we should just go back to pulling a sword from a stone…it was so much simpler back then.
This is the VERY point that none of the Cruz supporters will seem to acknowledge.
If Obama was ineligible, then Cruz MUST be ineligible.
If, as almost all Cruz supporters seem to be doing and disavowing the entire Obama question, then please tell me how being a “natural born citizen” is any different than being an anchor baby to an illegal alien, or any other kind of birthright citizen.
I’d really like to hear it.
He’s flat out NOT ELIGIBLE, no matter how much you might like him or how swell of a candidate he is.
He was not born here, or in territories within the jurisdiction of the U.S., to two citizens and therefore he IS NOT a ‘Natural Born Citizen’.
Rob Natelson, and Thomas Lee, both assert that according to the original meaning of the term “natural born Citizen” in our Constitution, Tez Cruz would not be eligible. Neither are “birthers”.
Based on my own research over seven years, I say the same. It has zero to do with Ted Cruz, but I will be excoriated as a birther anyway. Don’t care. I put in the time to get educated. And now the heavyweight originalists are coming out of the closet. Expect more to follow. It is not settled law, and it is only recently that it has ever been challenged. Without being challenged, and without the term being defined in a specific “law”, how could it ever HAVE been settled before?
It needs to be fast-tracked to SCOTUS, pronto. Otherwise there is going to be serious caca coming down the pike.
I’ve had a difficult time lately supporting Ann Coulter for various and obvious reasons. I will take the word and scholarly input of Mark Levin over Ann any day. We need a courageous leader not a cowardly Kenyan with man-gravy on his back.
He is not eligible never was. We don’t need the Supreme Court.
I love Ann Coulter but she needs to slow down a take a couple deep breaths. She gets so obsessed with her favorite candidates and then tries to destroy anyone/anything that threatens them. She did the same thing with Chris Christie and Mitt Romney.
Man I can’t wait for Magnum to show up here tonight. When it gets took dark to rip Trump campaign signs out front yards you guys are in big trouble.
By the way, he’s eligible. But that won’t stop the Dems from trying to tie him up in court.
Sorry dude, but who’s going to stop him if it doesn’t go to the supreme court? You, and your attitude?
I’m being serious. Answer the question.
Who is going to stop him?
I can live with that.
Now lets turn back the clock on the usurper in chief.
Will you take the word of originalist Constitutional scholars? Rob Natelson, and Thomas Lee. There are going to be many more.
I would be stunned if the Supreme Court will hear this based solely on questions surrounding Ted Cruz.
Yes, there will be. But not because of Cruz. It may be more of a “challenge” than a conservative who was born in Canada to a US citizen mother. And THAT is what I am very worried about.
image: http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/40ed86c4fb50e021b9bb81fa20cd160e?s=120&d=mm&r=pg
Bud
January 13, 2016 at 7:27 pm
This is the VERY point that none of the Cruz supporters will seem to acknowledge.
If Obama was ineligible, then Cruz MUST be ineligible.
If, as almost all Cruz supporters seem to be doing and disavowing the entire Obama question, then please tell me how being a “natural born citizen” is any different than being an anchor baby to an illegal alien, or any other kind of birthright citizen.
I’d really like to hear it.
He’s flat out NOT ELIGIBLE, no matter how much you might like him or how swell of a candidate he is.
He was not born here, or in territories within the jurisdiction of the U.S., to two citizens and therefore he IS NOT a ‘Natural Born Citizen’.
LIKE —–>3+
Reply
Read more at https://iotwreport.com/coulter-stirs-the-pot-cruz-not-eligible/#eiIdr7EIj3FKm1lx.99
There were at least a dozen lawsuits regarding Obama’s eligibility and the courts did everything possible to protect him. Many were dismissed because they claimed that the people suing had no “standing” under the law and not a single judge actually addressed his eligibility one way or another based on evidence.
Thus, any court that attempts to deny that Cruz is eligible will have to go against the precedents set as the result of the Obama decisions (or lack thereof). If the corrupt excuse we have for a “justice system” allowed Obama to hold office I don’t see any “legal” excuse or reasoning to prevent Cruz from doing so as well, regardless of what the Constitution says regarding “natural born” status..
The good news is that unlike Obama, at least Cruz is phiiosophically a patriotic American that seems to care about the Constitution and the welfare of America as a sovereign entity. Plus, Cruz wasn’t raised as a moslem in a foreign country..
And here’s the thing that the ineligible crowd can’t come to grips with –
WHO IS GOING TO STOP HIM????
Everyone is sitting around pontificating about who is and who isn’t eligible, meanwhile he’s moving forward.
Alan Grayson vows to challenge Cruz’s eligibility.
What’s his standing??
Who is Alan Grayson and how will he stop Cruz, exactly?
What’s the process?
Who is going to do it?
String Bean Coulter is a moron!
https://thehayride.com/2016/01/ted-cruz-birthers-are-morons/
The DNC will sue once he is our candidate
He should do what Trump suggested otherwise Trump will not be able to tap him for VP. Obviously Trumps going to carry the day and I do believe he’s looking at Cruz as second in charge. Cruz apparently still thinks he has a chance.
It is not a matter of stopping him.
The issue is legitimizing everything Obungle Bunny has done.
On top of that, the idea that the SCOTUS was the final arbiter of the Constitution is a rather recent leftist concept. Naturally the court has accepted it, but that does not remove the fact that it is wrong.
Given a choice of those out front, I would prefer Cruz hands down. Unlike Trump, he did not come to his conclusions a year ago, and is not running on Bill Clinton’s platform. I don’t dislike Trump, but I have a hard time seeing his conviction due to how recently it came about.
On the other hand, Cruz may serve us were the SCOTUS to rule him ineligible. Then every action done by the current imposter could be, overnight, null and void.
To Hell With The Cruz Birthers!
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/429621/hell-ted-cruz-birthers
Told yah.
I may be hated for being a birther, but having said that, I admire the man greatly. My struggle:
Choose him with a great track record of conservative values, but deny what the Constitution has plainly stated on this issue.
2). Pick Trump, toughass on immigration but has viewpoints that lack luster on the conservative.
Fast forward: If Cruz is or becomes eligible, I wouldn’t anticipate him to be as tough as Trump on immigration.
If Trump gets elected, borders and stronger American economy but continuing socialization on other issues.
On another conservative site, my butt was checked up on the Cruz eligibility issue. Am sad.
Ted Cruz (politician): Who would have standing in a suit about Ted Cruz’s eligibility for the Presdency?
Because Ted Cruz was born in Canada some question whether he is a “natural-born” citizen eligible for the Presidency under Article II section 1 of the US Constitution. This asks who would a court recognize as having standing to bring a suit on this question, not whether or not Cruz is eligible
1 Answer
Colin Jensen, research a lot before I vote
91 Views • Upvoted by Cliff Gilley, Studied Constitutional Law during law school with a primary focus on First Amendment issues related…
IANAL.
It’s a little bit of a question who has standing. No one knows, even though to the surprise of those with short-memories, it literally comes up almost every four years and always has. In theory, anyone who’s damaged by it has standing, including other candidates. See “Standing (law)”[1]. But there’s a law, 3 U.S. Code Chapter 1[2], that kinda’ says it’s congress’ job. So various congresspeople have suggested filing it.
The best way to say “there is no answer” is to look at “Barack Obama presidential eligibility litigation”[3]. We see there that almost 50 lawsuits were filed regarding Obama’s eligibility, and there’s really no commonality on who someone decided had standing. There were competing candidates, congresspeople, states, grand juries, individual attorneys, individual citizens, etc.
But that’s problem #2. Problem #1 is that, as with Obama, no one of any legal credibility believes there is a question. There are those who would like the courts to be more clear about the definition of “natural born citizen[4],” but that doesn’t mean there’s statistical significance among those who have a question.
So, if you were to do your own research you would start by reading 8 U.S. Code § 1401[5]. Again, someone will then say “that only says he’s a citizen at birth, but is he a natural born citizen?” That’s Hollywood talking, MSNBC/FoxNews-stuff, equivalent to saying “yes, he has freedom of speech, but we just don’t know if he has speech-freedom? Ah-ha, got you!” We have had dozens of people run for president who were born in foreign countries, from Goldwater (Arizona Territory) to Romney (Mexico) to McCain (Panama) to possibly President Chester Arthur (Canada), and these ideas have been just a way to rally the low-information base for every one of them–including the Clinton campaign’s and then Trump’s accusing Obama of being born in Kenya, and half the defense replying “no he wasn’t,” and the other half saying “no he wasn’t, but if he was, it would be irrelevant because his mother was a citizen.” Ironically the Clinton campaign ignored that Obama’s opponent was born in Panama.
So, bottom line, read the links and the Constitution and decide for yourself whether “natural born citizen” is meant to have a different equation than “citizen at birth.” Because if not, there’s no issue because the definition of a citizen has a ton a ton of precedent.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/standing
Exactly what I said and I support Cruz for Prsdident. If you’re allowing Obama on the same grounds then forgive me, what the fuck difference does it make now that the rule of law, Constitutional law, is dead.
If that’s the case than those that backed Obama and those that stood idly by in the Congress and SCOTUS need to be taken out and shot. Let’s do this!
Certainly however, this points to a conspiracy that allowed the trouble to usurp the POTUS from the get go and that means serious trouble for Congress critters that stood by and said nothing.
Are you kidding? Nobody has standing in the eyes of the courts today which translates to they mean absolutely nothing. Rule of law is dead.
The constitution is inadequate to govern people that are clueless as they are corrupt.
i just received my brand spanking new birth certificate from the state department, stating that i a citizen of the United States…. i needed it to replace the ancient piece of falling apart paper that was my original birth certificate…..
i was born in occupied Germany in 1953….i was born there because both of my parents were members of the United States military….it really seriously irritates me that you are all so eager to declare ME to be NOT A CITIZEN because of the patriotism of my parents – which resulted in me being born overseas – while at the same time you will bend over backwards to give MY citizenship to some anchor baby, whose parents have done nothing for this country…….
there is no doubt in any reasonable mind that ted cruz is a natural born citizen….his mother was a citizen at the time of his birth, and this newly minted “naturalized at birth” argument is laughable…”naturalized at birth”……think about it….make sense to you???……what exactly is the difference between “naturalized at birth” and “natural born citizen?”…….the only difference is whether you want the subject to be able to run for president, or not…….
it’s different for barry soetero, by the way…..when his mommie allowed him to be adopted by an indonesian daddie, she relinquished his american citizenship – there were no dual-citizenship agreements in place between US an Indonesia at the time – so…..if he never applied to get it back, it doesn’t matter one poo where he was born – he lost his citizenship when he got adopted….anyone got proof he applied for reinstatement of citizenship?????….
i thought not……….
you only need ONE citizen parent, idiot
I live rent free in Bad_Brads head. LMAO!
Yea, ain’t it the truth. Notice all those Pro Trump Articles I post non fucking stop. Dude your family is probably planning an intervention. I hope so, for your sake. Don’t drink anything given to you in a paper cup slick
Whatever you say California girl. LMAO!
Poor little Bradly you must have been picked on in school a lot. But hiding behind a keyboard you’re so tough LMAO!
You don’t handle defeat well Magnum. You can lash out at me all you want. But the poll numbers speak for them selves. And by the way, if you are such a strong Constitutionalist you should be standing behind Rand Paul. My second choice.
You spelled, “Coulter Jumps the Shark” wrong.
Just helpin’
No one is arguing that you are a citizen. Look to the founders for what they intended: no foreign influence whatsoever. A natural born citizen is one born on the soil to parents who are also citizens. Article I, Section III, clause 3 requirement for senator is citizenship. Same for the House. A higher standard is required for president in Article II, Section I, clause 5. Why the difference? cruz, rubio, haley, jindal are not NBC and neither is obama because of his kenyan father. We ‘birthers’ fought him then and will fight these other ineligible presidential candidates now. Donald Trump understands what this is about and he also knows that obama has a forged bc because he was not born in Hawaii.
Children born to parents abroad who were in service to their country have always been “natural born citizens”. Always, from the beginning. Cruz has a different situation.
I reserve a special loathing for backstabbers. Ann turned in her morality for celebrity quite some time ago and she still running true to that form.
I have near-zero doubt that Trump offered her the same thing Romney probably offered her: Supreme Court nomination.