Constitutional Minute: “Natural born” citizenship and the presidency

A Houston-based attorney has filed a lawsuit against Cruz, asking the U.S. Supreme Court to settle whether Canadian-born Cruz is eligible for the presidency.

Although Schwartz said that a judge has been assigned to the case and that he is prepared to take it to the Supreme Court, legal scholars remain skeptical that it could get that far.

“The entire nation can not afford such constitutional confusion and uncertainties overhanging the electorate process”, Schwartz, who lives and practices law in Cruz’s home state, wrote in the 73-page lawsuit. They argue that the meaning of “natural born” should be viewed in the context of the 1700s, when where you were born was the controlling factor.

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz was born in Canada; he is not a “natural born citizen”, and he is not eligible to be president. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, speaks Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2016, during a campaign stop at Granite State Indoor Range in Hudson, N.H.

As he did at Thursday night’s debate, Trump has often cited Cruz’s former Harvard constitutional law professor, Laurence Tribe. The Texas senator’s mother, Eleanor Darragh, was born to a Irish-Italian family in DE and was the first in her family to attend college, the National Journal reported in June.

The lawsuit noted that despite the fact that Obama’s mother, like that of Cruz, was indisputably an American citizen, his eligibility remains in doubt among conservative critics who still believe he was actually born in Kenya, the country of birth of his father.

FILE – President Obama speaks to reporters about the controversy over his birth certificate at the White House in Washington, April 27, 2011.

He said he filed the case on behalf of the American people to avoid the messy situation in which Cruz is deemed ineligible only after winning the Republican nomination or the presidency. However, his father was born in Cuba. The birthers insist that his birth in Hawaii, an American state since before Obama’s birth, somehow disqualified him.

That has convinced so-called birthers to conclude Rubio is ineligible under Article 2 of the Constitution, which says “no person except a natural born citizen … shall be eligible to the Office of President”.

He went on to lay out the legal basis for why he was qualified – his mother was a USA citizen – and mentioned that it was the reason previous GOP candidates, such as John McCain and George Romney, were able to run for president, concluding the “legal issue is quite straightforward”.

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Schwartz said he has no partisan motivation in filing the suit and is eligible to do so as a US voter.