Look; the battle over Jus Solis v. Jus Sanguinis is hardly a trivial one, is hardly limited to British Common Law, and is hardly a question of just the past two hundred years. In any case the question is ultimately whether someone is subject to the government of a country since their birth and not only is there not any evidence that Ted Cruz has been anything except a dual American/Canadian citizen since birth – Americans already consider Canadians to be their citizen cousins and so anyone harping on this has a serious chip on their shoulder and should probably just drop it. Ted Cruz is disqualified from being the president because he can’t effectively lead anyone except those who have already lined up to follow, who cares about the citizenship status of his mother? Come on, let’s be better than that.
I saw Tribe last night on Lawrence O’Donnell. I loved the disqualification line. He was quite brilliant indeed and called out Cruz for his convenient interpretation when it suits him,
So if I was born in this country to a mother and father who were naturalized citizens, does that bring my citizenship into question and have I illegally voted all these years - and wow, I may not be qualified to run for president
Hmm…
- Does that mean McCain, who was also not born on US soil, would also have been ineligible?
- Is RWNJ Piyush Jindal of Lousiana., who was born in US but was a true Anchor Baby(both parents non citizens), eligible to be POTUS?
Nah. Let’s not. Being better than is about as effective as ‘thoughts and prayers’.
Obama has to be laughing his ass off.
I am.
Don’t forget, this is the same party that wants to annul the 14th amendment!!
So the we the people that were actually born in the USA, cannot be citizens…yet, slimy asswipes like this guy can be?
A slimy fuckface?
Well, if for no other reason, being able to use this issue to troll Cruz is worth every ounce of gold in Fort Knox.
What goes around, comes around as far as I’m concerned.
I hate that ingratiating boot-licking bastard. He’s a very real power-wielding theocrat and his Dominionist views of the world are even more frightening.
I just read the article, and the professor makes a pretty weak case. She starts by saying that “On this subject, common law is clear and unambiguous,” and links to William Blackstone’s words on the topic. She doesn’t mention that Blackstone notes that there are some exceptions to his definitions of natural-born and alien:
“Yet the children of the king’s embassadors born abroad were always held to be natural subjects: for as the father, though in a foreign country, owes not even a local allegiance to the prince to whom he is sent; so, with regard to the son also, he was held (by a kind of postliminium) to be born under the king of England’s allegiance, represented by his father, the embassador.”
That seems pretty unambiguous, right? If the King’s ambassadors are traveling and have kids, those kids are natural-born subjects, because their parents were loyal to the King. Doesn’t it follow that in America the same rules would apply to all citizens, being loyal to the United States?
Blackstone goes on to say:
To encourage also foreign commerce, it was enacted by statute 25 Edw. III. st. 2. that all children born abroad, provided both [italics in the original] their parents were at the time of the birth in allegiance to the king, and the mother had passed the seas by her husband’s consent, might inherit as if born in England: and accordingly it hath been so adjudged in behalf of merchants. But by several more modern statutes these restrictions are still farther taken off: so that all children, born out of the king’s ligeance, whose fathers were natural-born subjects, are now natural-born subjects themselves, to all intents and purposes, without any exception; unless their said fathers were attainted, or banished beyond sea, for high treason; or were then in the service of a prince at enmity with Great Britain.
Again… seems pretty clear that common law dictates that kids of natural-born citizens are natural-born regardless of where they’re born. Did Professor McManamon read through to the end?
But because the professor is a woman the Repubs won’t take any notice .
That is not a legal argument. The only argument that matters is what the original authors of the constitution thought at the time. Back then there was no such thing as quickly hopping over to another country. They were concerned that a foreign born leader might have allegiances to countries other than the US.
This wasn’t some hypothetical threat at the time either. Putting people with other allegiances in charge of countries was used to control them. It’s not hard to imagine that the framers of the constitution didn’t want a child born and raised in England to become president simply because one of their parents were US citizens.
McCain was born on a US military base which, by all intents and purposes, US territory, so he should be OK.
Jindal is OK, too… at least in the conventional non-right wing crazy universe
The popcorn is warm, buttery, and delicious. And sprinkled with Wingnut Karma - zesty!
And whats THAT smell?
I wonder if Prime Minister Trudeau is preparing to welcome his most recent citizen.
I will simply note that you’re not paying attention here.
The term “natural born citizen” means that one is born on US soil—in the 18th century “originalist” meaning embraced by the Founders.
It doesn’t mean birthright citizenship, which is addressed elsewhere in the Constitution.
None of this is permanently settled unless and until the SCOTUS rules on the question.
The Framers were very specific about not wanting people born outside the US running for president.
You seem unable to count to two.
Cruz had one parent who was putatively an American citizen, so he doesn’t meet Blackstone’s definition for children born abroad.
I gotta admit, I used to think Trump was an idiot but trolling Cruz with this is one more example of Trump’s ability to get the media all wound up and in line with the narrative he wants to promote, even if more than half the time they are shocked-shocked at what he is saying.
Cruz not qualified? I call that a “tempest in a trump-pot”
In my experience, all of the so-called “originalists” are “fair-weather originalists” (see, e.g., Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas). They claim originalism demands a certain result when it suits them and, in equal measure, make Constitutional law out of whole cloth when it suits them. Same goes with conservatives who call liberal jurists “activist judges.” An activist judge is one whose opinions they disagree with.