Cruz and the Constitution. Trump was right.

[Londoner]

Ted Cruz's Harvard law professor suggested that Donald Trump is correct about Cruz's potential eligibility issues. The question is not settled or obvious.

Cruz's law professor makes a good point. He said that Article II - as it was originally stipulated by the framers - does not leave room in the "natural born" clause to include a foreign born person to an American mother. The framers didn't hold women in this kind of legal regard, so even if they believed that blood certified citizenship (and it's not clear that they did), it was the father's blood that was sacrosanct.

Under the original meaning of the Constitution, Cruz is not eligible to be President. Problem is: most Republicans don't care about the original meaning of the Constitution. They tend to favor only the interpretations of the Constitution that serve their interests.

For a Liberal, Cruz is eligible because a Liberal believes in a "living Constitution". A Liberal believes that the meaning of Constitutional verbiage is framed not by the original meaning of the words, but by today's standards. And by today's liberal standards, the blood of the mother is as important as the blood of the father. Liberals believe that the Framer's "ancient, sexist patrilineal" standard that excludes matrilineal-blood-based citizenship is incorrect.

But Cruz is a self-declared Originalist, so he is committed to the Original Meaning of the Constitution. On this reading, not only is he ineligible, but he is a hypocrite for not bowing out. Is anyone surprised that Cruz is a hypocrite?

Congratulations Donald Trump. You were right.

 

[Londoner]

Cruz is an Originalist
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.

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

"Cruz is an Originalist"

Cruz is wrong, as are other 'originalists.'