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JGM, it's best to ignore this certain poster - there's no such thing as a rational discussion with her. She regularly invents historical 'facts' and demands that her opinion be taken as absolute truth.
Prove that John Jay's letter to George Washington originating the Constitution's NBC eligibility requirement doesn't exist.
Prove that the 1970 Act wasn't repealed in 1795.
Prove that Congress didn't fail to enact 2004 Senate bill 2128.
I'm posting historical and legal FACTS. There are FAR too many on here posting conjecture.
OK fine, but the requirement for POTUS is natural born citizen.
The requirement to serve in Congress is citizen.
Again, look back to how the Constitution was drafted at the Constitutional Convention. For Presidential eligibility, "born a citizen" was rejected and John Jay's suggestion of "natural born citizen" was adopted. The two are not interchangeable.
A born dual citizen can be "born a citizen." But they are also born a foreigner, which the Constitution intended to prevent according to John Jay's suggestion.
You are correct, the requirements or stipulations if you will to become Senator are not as harsh as the ones to become President are. Senators merely have to be U.S. Citizens, this means Arnold could have been one, heck he was a governor already. The term "natural citizen" to me would imply born within the United States or on U.S. soil somewhere, I think Ted Cruz falls short of that.
Very different rights. Examples: A subject does not elect a monarch. A subject cannot run to be elected monarch.
You keep assuming subject and citizen are interchangeable. They are not.
The letter itself describes what it means: foreigners are prohibited from eligibility for POTUS and Commander in Chief. Born dual citizens are born foreigners.
1) The US fought a very bloody revolution to declare INDEPENDENCE from England.
2) The Constitutional Convention drafted a very different government structure, court structure, legislative structure, etc., in the Constitution than that of England's at the time.
The best accuracy is achieved by looking at the most direct historical evidence: John Jay's letter to Washington. Anything else is just conjecture.
You're operating on a surface level. Law is deeper than that. We don't know what NBC means yet we have legislation in England close to the time of the letter using the phraseology.
Subject v. Citizen is distinguished by a role within a governmental system then, you've described a Monarch vs. a Republic. The Natural Born didn't change.
You're right we did fight for independence from the Monarch, but we borrowed their legal system and term usage. We stil use it.
Here's how this goes down, SCOTUS reviews this and all of this 'conjecture' will come up because the John Jay letter doesn't define NBC, the fact that it is used in another legal system that we based ours on is a strong indication of what it meant. Moreover Washongton appeared to know what it meant without explanation.
Now you're points will come up because the system is adversarial. I just don't see your case being as strong as you've taken the time to demonstrate it.
Well, a 1/3 of Republicans have their doubts about Cruz being a "natural born" citizen so who wants to waste a vote in the caucus or primary on someone who might not be qualified anyway? A third of Republican voters aren
Saw the cutest comment on another website for Cruz's theme song: "Born Near the USA".
You are correct, the requirements or stipulations if you will to become Senator are not as harsh as the ones to become President are. Senators merely have to be U.S. Citizens, this means Arnold could have been one, heck he was a governor already. The term "natural citizen" to me would imply born within the United States or on U.S. soil somewhere, I think Ted Cruz falls short of that.
Clearly to be a natural born citizen in 1787 one had to be born on US soil, not abroad. Nothing has changed the constitutional meaning of that.
Well, a 1/3 of Republicans have their doubts about Cruz being a "natural born" citizen so who wants to waste a vote in the caucus or primary on someone who might not be qualified anyway? A third of Republican voters aren
Saw the cutest comment on another website for Cruz's theme song: "Born Near the USA".
If those voters are too uneducated or daft to understand that this is a political issue that will never be anything more than a footnote in the desperate story of the birther brigade - as seen by the birthers against Obama, then they probably should not be allowed to vote at all, and are likely Trump supporters anyway.
Cruz will do just fine without the low info and birther votes in November.
Being born on U.S. Soil to immigrant parents?
Being born abroad to U.S. Citizens?
Bear in mind McCain wasn't born on U.S. Soil
At the time of the constitution being born on US soil to two legal immigrant/citizen parents is better and is natural born. Any free white person who was brought here and allowed in 1787 and prior was considered a citizen or considered a British subject, and their child born here would be a natural born citizen. The 13th, 14th Amendment made free and white obsolete. But there's no amendment changing natural born.
McCain was born on a US Naval base so that seems to be the same as US soil.
You're operating on a surface level. Law is deeper than that. We don't know what NBC means yet we have legislation in England close to the time of the letter using the phraseology.
Have you forgotten that we declared INDEPENDENCE from England? The FFs framed a very different government, legislature, court system, etc., than England's, yet you want to insist that after fighting a bloody revolution, declaring independence, and setting up completely different governmental structures that they just adopted English law?
Here's food for thought from SCOTUS in 1971's Rogers v. Bellei:
Quote:
"...we have, in the Civil Rights Act of April 9, 1866, 14 Stat. 27, the first statutory recognition and concomitant formal definition of the citizenship status of the native born: "[A]ll persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States . . . ."
Mr. Justice Gray has observed that the first sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment was "declaratory of existing [401 U.S. 815, 830] rights, and affirmative of existing law," so far as the qualifications of being born in the United States, being naturalized in the United States, and being subject to its jurisdiction are concerned. United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S., at 688 . Then follows a most significant sentence:
"But it [the first sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment] has not touched the acquisition of citizenship by being born abroad of American parents; and has left that subject to be regulated, as it had always been, by Congress, in the exercise of the power conferred by the Constitution to establish an uniform rule of naturalization."
Thus, at long last, there emerged an express constitutional definition of citizenship. But it was one restricted to the combination of three factors, each and all significant: birth in the United States, naturalization in the United States, and subjection to the jurisdiction of the United States. The definition obviously did not apply to any acquisition of citizenship by being born abroad of an American parent. That type, and any other not covered by the Fourteenth Amendment, was necessarily left to proper congressional action."
Bellei was found to NOT be a US citizen, by the way.
Cruz just simply did not meet any of the requirements under Public Act 414, Sec 320, in effect at the time of his birth to acquire US citizenship at birth. He would have had to have naturalized as a minor via immigration of a US citizen's close relative (his mother), or at age 18+ on his own. Naturalized citizens are not natural born.
Furthermore, after the 1790 Act was repealed in 1795, Congress never legislated that those born abroad to US citizen parents were "natural born citizens" for Constitutional eligibility purposes. The last attempt to do so in 2004, failed. 2004 Senate bill 2128.
Last edited by InformedConsent; 01-21-2016 at 05:49 AM..
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