Constitutional Law Professor: Ted Cruz Is Not Eligible to Be President
Some people are referring to the debate about Ted Cruz’s eligibility as “Cruz birtherism,” and there’s no doubt that the most visible person advancing the argument is Donald Trump — a notorious Birther who built his right wing base by pandering to the conspiracy theorists who believe President Obama is a secret Muslim non-citizen.
But there’s a crucial difference in the case of Ted Cruz that makes the conspiracy-flavored term “birtherism” inaccurate.
It’s an ineluctable fact that Ted Cruz was born in Canada, not the United States; and in today’s Washington Post constitutional law professor Mary Brigid McManamon makes a pretty good argument that this means Cruz is not eligible to be president.
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.”
Note that I’m not endorsing this argument, but it’s pretty delicious to see the right wing obsession with birth certificates coming back to bite them in the nether regions.
