Tracy Hunt, a Weston County Commissioner from Newcastle, reportedly will file a lawsuit against the Wyoming secretary of state if U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas is nominated for president at the state’s Republican caucus.
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Ted Cruz was born to an American mother and a Cuban father…in Canada.
The U.S. Constitution states that “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 light of the fact that the legitimacy of the Obama election/presidency was once called into question by Donald Trump precisely because the president hadn’t proved to Trump’s satisfaction that he had in fact been born in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA, in August, 1961; it took Trump “long enough” to raise this question with what appears to be his chief rival for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX). The Naturalization Act of 1790 provided that “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….”
Cruz was born to an American mother in Canada in 1970.
People are entitled to their own opinions about what the definition ought to be.
Since declaring his presidential run in March, Cruz has often said that enmity demonstrates his independence, and he’s used it to appeal to disappointed conservatives. “He was naturally born there”. Even having two USA parents wouldn’t suffice. “And having just an American mother, as Cruz did, would clearly have been insufficient at a time that made patrilineal descent decisive”. Over the past few years Mr Trump was a full on “birther”, claiming the twice elected President of the United States, despite all the evidence to the contrary, like birth certificates, contemporary newspaper stories, and various witnesses from the time such as a future governor of the state, wasn’t actually born in the United States, but was some sort of foreign sleeper, brought in from some mysterious place, probably Kenya, in order to do bad things to the country. “The most conservative constitutional interpreters must find Cruz ineligible to be president; liberals must grin and bear him”. And there is no question that he had Canadian citizenship – before renouncing it in preparation for his presidential run.
“It is more than a little odd to see Donald relying on, as authoritative, a liberal, left-wing judicial-activist Harvard law professor who is a huge Hillary supporter”, Mr. Cruz said of Mr. Tribe, who was once his professor at Harvard. According to the latest Quinnipiac poll, Cruz has a 75 percent favorability rating with 17 percent unfavorable, compared with Trump’s 61/34 favorable/unfavorable score.
The text of the Constitution doesn’t exclude either interpretation.
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To which the Cruz campaign replied with a memo Tuesday from communications director Rick Tyler, “Tribe: Then and Now”. Cruz brushed off Trump’s initial comments. Nonetheless, I think that Ramsey’s account provides the best understanding of the meaning of “natural born citizen”, and that this account is also the most consistent with historical practice. “Flip-Flopping on Questions of Natural Born Citizenship”. Trump, with a inquisitive shoulder shrug, seems particularly apt at creating controversies that distract voters from the more serious issues we face.
