GOP Presidential front runner Donald Trump has hit his chief challenger Texas Sen. Ted Cruz hard on the so called “birther issue.” Trump saying that “If Cruz were the party’s presidential nominee that someone could sue the Republican’s on the grounds that he [Cruz] was born in Canada, to an American mother and a Cuban father, therefore according to the constitution he would not be eligible to serve as president.”
Well Thursday morning a Texas lawyer filed the first suit seeking clarification on whether Republican candidate Ted Cruz is indeed eligible to be president because he was born in Canada.
Newton Schwartz, 85, of Houston also cited Cruz’s stance on issues such as abortion rights, gay marriage and the Bible in a 27-page argument against the Texas senator’s eligibility. Most legal analysts feel that while Schwartz case has some merit but that the suit was “defective” and would most likely be thrown out.
According to CNN Schwartz contends “No previous case has been presented or decided on this issue by the U.S. Supreme Court, including because in fact none arose, as here to being a case or controversy ripe for decisions as here is presented,” the complaint said. “The entire nation cannot afford such constitutionally confusion and uncertainties overhangings the electorate process.”
The complaint argues that Cruz’s issue is very different than the “birther” theories about President Barack Obama’s birth, and that past presidential candidates like George Romney — who was born in Mexico — were also ineligible to be president or vice president.
“Ted Cruz is not the first foreign born ineligible president candidate to run afoul of the above U.S. Constitution originals and other laws,” the complaint said. “The list is long.”
Cruz was conferred American citizenship at birth because his mother is an American citizen, and legal experts have largely agreed that would qualify him for natural-born citizenship. The Texas Republican was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and also had Canadian citizenship until he renounced it in 2014.
The most credible challenge to the Cruz eligibility has come from Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe, whose students have included Cruz, President Barack Obama, Supreme Court justices John Roberts and Elena Kagan.
Tribe has argued that the strict, originalist legal philosophy that Cruz advocates on issues like the 2nd Amendment and gay marriage, and which his potential Supreme Court nominees would likely espouse, should disqualify him from being president.
According to Tribe on NBC “Ironically, the kind of justices he says he wants are the ones that say he’s not eligible to run for president,” Tribe argued. “This is important because the way this guy plays fast and loose with the Constitution, he’s a fair weather originalist.”
Constitutional lawyers nationwide are all fascinated by the case so there will be plenty of challengers out there waiting to see how the Schwartz case plays out.
Meanwhile, according to The Hill a Florida voter filed the suit, which claims that Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, isn’t a true “natural-born citizen” under the Constitution because his parents were not both U.S. citizens at his birth in Miami. They both later became citizens not long after Rubio’s birth and this is far different from the Cruz case.
That case seems to be very weak and Sen. Rubio’s lawyers also note that the same voter’s suit against President Obama, citing similar points, was thrown out by a Florida court as well. Rubio’s lawyers then go into significant detail challenging the voter’s standing to sue and citing a range of legal precedent in favor of Rubio’s eligibility as a “natural-born citizen” while adding that the issue should be left up to Congress instead of the judiciary.