If you would like to listen to Rosen’s explanation, use the player below.
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The question of whether Cruz was eligible for the White House has become a divisive campaign issue, most recently during the latest GOP debate Thursday night.
The 28-page lawsuit said, “It is undisputed, by all legal scholars, there is no U.S. Supreme Court decision or precedent: determinative of the following agreed facts of this case and controversy”.
“The entire nation can not afford such constitutionally (sic) confusion and uncertainties overhangings (sic) the electorate process”, the suit filed on behalf of Texas resident Newton Boris Schawtz argues.
The argument between Cruz and Trump marked a departure from what had been a chummy relationship between the two Republicans.
“I recognize that Donald is dismayed that his poll numbers are falling in Iowa”, Cruz said. “You can’t have the question hanging over your head”.
“Interestingly enough, Donald J. Trump would be disqualified…because Donald’s mother was born in Scotland”, Cruz said.
Cruz was born in Calgary, Alberta.
Cruz is seeking the Republican nomination in the presidential race.
The Constitution’s Article II states in part 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”. It appears to be the first lawsuit challenging the Canadian-born Cruz’s eligibility on the grounds that he does not meet the Constitution’s “natural born citizen” requirement.
Cruz countered that Trump was simply invoking the recent punditry of Laurence Tribe, a Harvard Law School professor whose former students include Cruz and Barack Obama (to whom Tribe was a mentor).
“So the question is when the framers of our constitution used the phrase ‘natural-born citizen, ‘ were they talking about the common law, which meant even if your parents were English you still have to be naturalized, or were they talking about these very radical 18th century statutes”, McManamon says. The Senate passed a resolution stating that he was a “natural born citizen”.
Schwartz said getting this question of constitutional eligibility out of the way now could actually help Cruz. “And then other people, including some on the right, just don’t want to address it because it’s Trump that’s saying it”. The Constitution says the president must be a “natural-born citizen”.
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A secretary of state in any state could choose not to place Cruz on the ballot, which would force his campaign to sue.
