Congressman Alan Grayson Doesn’t Think Ted Cruz Meets Constitutional Qualifications to be President

According to this story, Congressman Alan Grayson, who represents much of Orlando, Florida, doesn’t believe that Ted Cruz meets the constitutional qualifications to be President. Grayson, a Democrat, says if the Republican Party nominates Ted Cruz, that litigation will result.


Comments

Congressman Alan Grayson Doesn’t Think Ted Cruz Meets Constitutional Qualifications to be President — 12 Comments

  1. Giant sucking sound http://www.uwsa.com/issues/peso/mex-a.html

    Still relavent after all these years 1992 – 2016
    Perot v Trump

    NAFTA v Mexican peso bond bailout
    Multi-circuit
    In re natural born citizen party national committee et al v executive action alien amnesty SCOTUS consolidated USA et al v State of Texas et al and Arpaio

    Federal Reserve to be used to fund massive natural born citizen veterans jobs bill exporting undocumented and illegal immigrants back to their countries of origin.

  2. AMENDED PETITION for Mandamus to Stay Federal General Election filed by Petitioner Natural Born Citizen Party National Committee, et al.. [15-2379] (GA)
    11/24/2015 Filing fee was paid by Petitioner Natural Born Citizen Party National Committee, et al. Receipt number: 021861. [15-2379] (GA)

  3. Congressman Grayson’s comment is unfortunate. As attorney Bryan K. Gould for Ted Cruz wrote in response to a ballot challenge in New Hampshire last week:

    “The Constitution does not explicitly define the phrase ‘natural born Citizen.’ But its meaning is not difficult to determine, evidenced by the fact that every single reliable authority is in agreement on what it means: a ‘natural born Citizen’ is anyone who was a citizen at the moment they were ‘born’—as opposed to becoming a citizen later, through the naturalization process at some point after their birth.”

    Gould is right, and I am disappointed to see Grayson descend into the crackpot theories of the birther jihad against Barack Obama.

  4. The Law of Nations is incorporated in the Constitution in Article 1, section 8. That is where the definition can be found, as written in 1758, 29 years before the Constitution. As Vattel repeats THREE TIMES, it is the citizenship of a person’s father which determines the child’s natural born status: § 212. Citizens and natives.

    The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens. As the society cannot exist and perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights. The society is supposed to desire this, in consequence of what it owes to its own preservation; and it is presumed, as matter of course, that each citizen, on entering into society, reserves to his children the right of becoming members of it. The country of the fathers is therefore that of the children; and these become true citizens merely by their tacit consent. We shall soon see whether, on their coming to the years of discretion, they may renounce their right, and what they owe to the society in which they were born. I say, that, in order to be of the country, it is necessary that a person be born of a father who is a citizen; for, if he is born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth, and not his country.

  5. Federal Reserve Bosrd of Governors noticed to establish natural born citizen party national committee vetting trust fund

  6. The Framers drafted and adopted the Constitution and its natural born citizen clause in 1787. The Constitution does not define the clause. We therefore need to look to see what their definition of the clause was then, unless there is some evidence that the clause was ever amended by a duly ratified constitutional amendment. The only constitutional amendment that defines citizenship is the Fourteenth Amendment. Both Minor v. Happersett (1875) and U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) have both explained that the meaning of a natural born citizen is not found in the Fourteenth Amendment. Hence, Article II’s natural born citizen clause has never been amended by our Constitution.

    Our U.S. Supreme Court has informed that one way to learn what meanings the Framers gave to terms or clauses they put into the Constitution at that time is to look to the state of things and meanings that existed at that time. Both Minor and Wong Kim Ark have explained that one significant piece of evidence to look at is the common law that existed at the time of the Framing. Both Minor and Wong Kim Ark defined a natural born citizen under the common law with which the Framers were familiar when they drafted and adopted the Constitution. The unanimous U.S. Supreme Court explained in Minor that that common law defined a natural born citizen as a child born in country to parents who were its citizens at the time of the child’s birth and that all the rest of the people were “aliens or foreigners” who needed to be naturalized under Acts of Congress or treaties. Minor even added that “there have been doubts” whether children born in the United States to alien parents were even “citizens” under the Fourteenth Amendment. Since Virginia Minor was a natural born citizen and a fortiori a citizen, there was no need for Minor to address and answer the Fourteenth Amendment question. Wong was not a natural born citizen under the Framers’ common law, but he was born in the United States. Wong Kim Ark had to therefore to address and answer the Fourteenth Amendment question of whether he was born “subject to the jurisdiction.” Relying on the colonial English common law as and aid to interpret and apply that clause, it held that children born in the United States to alien parents who were permanently domiciled and resident in the United States and neither foreign diplomats nor military invaders were also “citizens” of the United States from the moment of birth by virtue of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court did not need to nor did it hold that Wong was an Article II natural born citizen. Hence, not only did Acts of Congress and treaties make more citizens of the United States of people who would otherwise not be citizens, but so did the Fourteenth Amendment. And Wong Kim Ark informed that persons born in the United States to qualifying alien parents were included at “citizens” by the force of the Fourteenth Amendment.

    Senator Ted Cruz was born in Canada to a U.S. citizen mother and non-U.S. citizen father. He cannot be a citizen under the common law relied upon by the Framers to define a natural born citizen. He therefore does not meet this constitutional common law definition of a natural born citizen which would a fortiori make him a “citizen” also. Nor can he be a “citizen” of the United States “at birth” under the Fourteenth Amendment, which status is reserved only for children who are born in the United States and “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” and who, not meeting the requirements of the common law which defines a natural born citizen, are not natural born citizens. Rather, he falls into that class of persons who at common law, because they were born in a foreign country, needed to be naturalized by an Act of Congress or treaty. Since he was born out of the United States, although to one U.S. citizen parent, Congress saw fit to naturalize him as a “citizen” of the United States “at birth.” Without such naturalization act, Cruz would be an alien at common law. If Cruz needed such naturalization act to be a citizen and if without such act he would be an alien at common law, he simply is not and cannot be a natural born citizen, for such a citizen does not need any positive law in order to be a citizen. See Wong Kim Ark (considered children born out of the United States to U.S. citizen parents to be naturalized by acts of Congress and explained that under the English common law, only children born in the King’s dominion and under his jurisdiction were natural born subjects and that any child born out of that dominion needed an act of Parliament to naturalize him or her); and Rogers v. Bellei, 401 U.S. 815 (1971) (both majority and dissent said the same as Wong Kim Ark which was that children born out of the United States to U.S. citizen parents become citizens of the United States only through the grace of Congress who made them citizens through a naturalization Act without which those children would be aliens). It simply defies logic and good reason and renders the natural born citizen clause a nullity to conclude that a person who would not be a citizen at all without a naturalization act of Congress is a natural born citizen. Including such a person as a natural born citizen effectively reads the natural born citizen clause out of the Constitution, but does so without constitutional amendment.

    In short, Mr. Cruz is a “citizen” of the United States “at birth” by virtue of a naturalization Act of Congress since his birth in 1970. As such, he is not and cannot be an Article II “natural born citizen.” Since he is neither “a natural born Citizen, [n]or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution,” he is not eligible to be President and Commander in Chief of the Military.

    For my response to Neal Katyal and Paul Clement article, see Mario Apuzzo, A Response to Neil Katyal and Paul Clement on the Meaning of a Natural Born Citizen , accessed at http://puzo1.blogspot.com/2015/03/a-response-to-neil-katyal-and-paul.html .

    Credit: Mario Apuzzo, Esq.

    http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2840767/posts

    Rep. John Bingham, Principal Framer of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

    During a debate (see pg. 2791) regarding a certain Dr. Houard, who had been incarcerated in Spain, the issue was raised on the floor of the House of Representatives as to whether the man was a US citizen. Representative Bingham (of Ohio), stated on the floor:

    As to the question of citizenship I am willing to resolve all doubts in favor of a citizen of the United States. That Dr. Houard is a natural-born citizen of the United States there is not room for the shadow of a doubt. He was born of naturalized parents within the jurisdiction of the United States, and by the express words of the Constitution, as amended to-day, he is declared to all the world to be a citizen of the United States by birth. (The term “to-day”, as used by Bingham, means “to date”. Obviously, the Constitution had not been amended on April 25, 1872.)

    Notice that Bingham declares Houard to be a “natural-born citizen” by citing two factors – born of citizen parents in the US.

    John Bingham, aka “father of the 14th Amendment”, was an abolitionist congressman from Ohio who prosecuted Lincoln’s assassins. Ten years earlier, he stated on the House floor:

    All from other lands, who by the terms of [congressional] laws and a compliance with their provisions become naturalized, are adopted citizens of the United States; all other persons born within the Republic, of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty, are natural born citizens. Gentleman can find no exception to this statement touching natural-born citizens except what is said in the Constitution relating to Indians. – (Cong. Globe, 37th, 2nd Sess., 1639 (1862))

    Then in 1866, Bingham also stated on the House floor:

    Every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen…. – (Cong. Globe, 39th, 1st Sess., 1291 (1866))

  7. In November 2014 he was re-elected, 93,850, to his Republican opponent’s 74,963. An independent in that race got 5,060. What kind of problems do you mean?

  8. 11/17/2015
    5 Natural Born Citizen Party National Committee (pty) 09cae 15-80195 1 11/18/2015
    6 Natural Born Citizen Party National Committee (pty) dccae 15-5218 2895 07/31/2015
    7 Natural Born Citizen Party National Committee (pty) dccae 15-5251 1 09/09/2015
    8 Natural Born Citizen Party National Committee, et al. (pty) 01cae 15-2379 1

  9. Ted Cruz has not been naturalized yet in the State of Texas. He is not a citizen of the State of Texas under the law enacted in
    1869. He was seven years old when his naturalization was completed as a United States citizen only, which did not include
    the State of Texas. Ted Cruz is not a “natural born citizen”.

    Sincerely, Mark Seidenberg, Chairman,
    American Independent Party of California

  10. Not political problems. I understand he’s gotten involved in a very messy divorce and is getting a lot of bad press.

  11. UPDATE–He does have political problems. It has just been announced by Politico that Grayson’s campaign manager, deputy manager, and press secretary have left the campaign. There’s also an investigation on some offshore accounts the feds have questions about.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.