Remember the new birtherism? That Ted Cruz might not be eligible to become president under the constitutional definition of “natural born citizen”? Ha. Of course you don’t. In 2016, it’s only news if it happened in the last couple of seconds.
But for anyone willing to revisit the last couple of months, multiple state courts have rejected or ruled against petitioners claiming that the Canadian-born Cuban-American senator could not legally become our first Canadian-born Cuban-American commander in chief. (Cruz’s mother was born in Delaware.) The lawsuits have aimed to keep Cruz off the ballot.
Relevant to upcoming primary dates, a New Jersey judge decided Tuesday that his state’s voters will have the opportunity to check the box for Cruz come June 7.
“While absolute certainty as to this issue is only available to those who actually sat in Philadelphia and themselves thought on the issue, having weighed the arguments as they are presented by those trying to understand the Framers’ intent, I conclude that the more persuasive legal analysis is that such a child, born of a citizen-father, citizen-mother, or both, is indeed a “natural born Citizen” within the contemplation of the Constitution,” Administrative Law Judge Jeff Masin wrote. His ruling goes to the New Jersey secretary of state, Kim Guadagno, who has the right to adopt, modify or reject it within 45 days. Guadagno is also lieutenant governor to Chris Christie.
As Masin noted, the only other state judge to actually rule on the legal question of Cruz’s eligibility was Senior Judge Dan Pelligrini of the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, who denied a petition to have the senator’s name removed from the state’s primary ballot.
“Having extensively reviewed all articles cited in this opinion, as well as many others, this Court holds, consistent with the common law precedent and statutory history, that a ‘natural born citizen’ includes any person who is a United States citizen from birth,” Pelligrini ruled in March.
Pennsylvania votes April 26.
Similar suits against Cruz in Illinois and New York, which votes next Tuesday, were tossed out on technical grounds last month.
Why all the challenges at the state level? The Wall Street Journal reports:
It’s worth noting the perspective of legal scholars here, since the original question of Cruz’s eligibility, like so many legitimate issues in politics, was turned into a noisy, unlistenable cover song.
Tokaji, like other such constitutional law experts as Randy Barnett and Laurence Tribe, have said the matter of Cruz’s eligibility is “not settled.”
“This is so, first, because the issue has not been squarely presented in exactly this context so has not been settled as a legal question by practice, and secondly that it has not been authoritatively ruled upon by the Supreme Court,” Barnett writes. “I would note, however, that at least some of the originalist arguments for why Ted is not a natural born citizen would also have undermined the eligibility of previous presidential candidates who were accepted as eligible, so practice does undermine these originalist theories.”
