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Who would be final arbiter on Ted Cruz’s eligibility for presidential run? Tough to say
Dallas News
Todd J. Gillman
8/31/2013
Excerpt:
WASHINGTON — Voters decide who wins a presidential election. But if there’s a question about a candidate’s eligibility to run and serve, who decides that?
There’s no clear answer.
No federal agency or court vets candidates. The Electoral College goes into action only every four years, and only after Election Day. Congress weighs in on a contested election only after ballots are cast. State by state, parties or a chief election official might oversee the rules.
In other words, it’s a maddening patchwork with no particular enforcement mechanism.
That could prove at least a mild headache for Canada-born Sen. Ted Cruz as he presses toward a White House bid.
His ambition, at least, is unambiguous enough. Cruz just agreed to hunt pheasant in Iowa in late October. No politician hunts pheasant in Iowa by accident, whatever his status as a “natural born” American under Article 2 of the Constitution.
In 2008, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the eventual GOP nominee, faced a flurry of court challenges stemming from his birth in the Panama Canal Zone. Most were dismissed for lack of legal standing by the people who filed the suits.
But questions persisted, and Congress felt compelled to step in, affirming his eligibility with a resolution that lacked the force of law and, in any case, applied only to him.
“These issues were resolved when Senator McCain ran for president,” said Dallas attorney James Ho — like Cruz, a former Texas solicitor general. “The courts uniformly rejected those challenges. … I see no reason why it would be any different if some people wanted to try to stop Cruz.”
That might not stop the litigation, though. “Birthers” continued to torment President Barack Obama long after he released his Hawaii birth certificate and despite a string of legal setbacks.
One of many spectacles occurred in Kansas in the summer of 2011 — more than halfway through Obama’s first term. The State Objections Board met to weigh a challenge to his eligibility, though it was ultimately dismissed.
The Congressional Research Service reviewed the issue in 2011. Its 53-page report covers Cruz’s situation, concluding that someone born abroad to an American parent could legally grow up to be president.
“The weight of legal and historical authority indicates that the term ‘natural born’ citizen would mean a person who is entitled to U.S. citizenship ‘by birth’ or ‘at birth,’ either by being born ‘in’ the United States and under its jurisdiction, even those born to alien parents [or…] by being born abroad to U.S. citizen-parents,” the report says.
The findings are nonpartisan — but also nonbinding.
It’s no better from the perspective of birthers. Recourse is nearly impossible.
“Judges either sit on cases for years or dismiss them with procedural rulings — that they have no jurisdiction, or the plaintiffs have no standing,” said one outspoken anti-Obama “birther,” California lawyer Orly Taitz, who suggested Cruz seek declaratory relief. “Have a court declare whether he’s eligible or not and take this issue off the table.”
The Constitution says nothing of dual citizenship, something Cruz recently realized he had, like it or not.
In 1898, the Supreme Court ruled that a man named Wong Kim Ark — born in San Francisco to Chinese parents, making him a subject of the emperor under Chinese law — counted as a natural born American. U.S. law determines who its citizens “at birth” would be, regardless of any other nation’s laws, the court held.
That’s a good precedent for Cruz. But where could he go to put such questions to rest authoritatively?
The Federal Election Commission sounds like a natural arbiter. It’s not.
Take the case of a New York lawyer named Abdul Karim Hassan, a naturalized American who decided to run for president in 2008.
After a federal court refused to declare him eligible, he turned to the commission, seeking guidance to ensure that he wouldn’t violate campaign finance law by running anyway.
In a September 2011 advisory opinion, the commission said that while Hassan couldn’t tap federal matching funds, it was fine for him to hold himself out as a candidate and even to collect donations. As for ballot access, that was up to each state.
.................................................. ...
View the complete article at:
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/colum...ugh-to-say.ece
Dallas News
Todd J. Gillman
8/31/2013
Excerpt:
WASHINGTON — Voters decide who wins a presidential election. But if there’s a question about a candidate’s eligibility to run and serve, who decides that?
There’s no clear answer.
No federal agency or court vets candidates. The Electoral College goes into action only every four years, and only after Election Day. Congress weighs in on a contested election only after ballots are cast. State by state, parties or a chief election official might oversee the rules.
In other words, it’s a maddening patchwork with no particular enforcement mechanism.
That could prove at least a mild headache for Canada-born Sen. Ted Cruz as he presses toward a White House bid.
His ambition, at least, is unambiguous enough. Cruz just agreed to hunt pheasant in Iowa in late October. No politician hunts pheasant in Iowa by accident, whatever his status as a “natural born” American under Article 2 of the Constitution.
In 2008, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the eventual GOP nominee, faced a flurry of court challenges stemming from his birth in the Panama Canal Zone. Most were dismissed for lack of legal standing by the people who filed the suits.
But questions persisted, and Congress felt compelled to step in, affirming his eligibility with a resolution that lacked the force of law and, in any case, applied only to him.
“These issues were resolved when Senator McCain ran for president,” said Dallas attorney James Ho — like Cruz, a former Texas solicitor general. “The courts uniformly rejected those challenges. … I see no reason why it would be any different if some people wanted to try to stop Cruz.”
That might not stop the litigation, though. “Birthers” continued to torment President Barack Obama long after he released his Hawaii birth certificate and despite a string of legal setbacks.
One of many spectacles occurred in Kansas in the summer of 2011 — more than halfway through Obama’s first term. The State Objections Board met to weigh a challenge to his eligibility, though it was ultimately dismissed.
The Congressional Research Service reviewed the issue in 2011. Its 53-page report covers Cruz’s situation, concluding that someone born abroad to an American parent could legally grow up to be president.
“The weight of legal and historical authority indicates that the term ‘natural born’ citizen would mean a person who is entitled to U.S. citizenship ‘by birth’ or ‘at birth,’ either by being born ‘in’ the United States and under its jurisdiction, even those born to alien parents [or…] by being born abroad to U.S. citizen-parents,” the report says.
The findings are nonpartisan — but also nonbinding.
It’s no better from the perspective of birthers. Recourse is nearly impossible.
“Judges either sit on cases for years or dismiss them with procedural rulings — that they have no jurisdiction, or the plaintiffs have no standing,” said one outspoken anti-Obama “birther,” California lawyer Orly Taitz, who suggested Cruz seek declaratory relief. “Have a court declare whether he’s eligible or not and take this issue off the table.”
The Constitution says nothing of dual citizenship, something Cruz recently realized he had, like it or not.
In 1898, the Supreme Court ruled that a man named Wong Kim Ark — born in San Francisco to Chinese parents, making him a subject of the emperor under Chinese law — counted as a natural born American. U.S. law determines who its citizens “at birth” would be, regardless of any other nation’s laws, the court held.
That’s a good precedent for Cruz. But where could he go to put such questions to rest authoritatively?
The Federal Election Commission sounds like a natural arbiter. It’s not.
Take the case of a New York lawyer named Abdul Karim Hassan, a naturalized American who decided to run for president in 2008.
After a federal court refused to declare him eligible, he turned to the commission, seeking guidance to ensure that he wouldn’t violate campaign finance law by running anyway.
In a September 2011 advisory opinion, the commission said that while Hassan couldn’t tap federal matching funds, it was fine for him to hold himself out as a candidate and even to collect donations. As for ballot access, that was up to each state.
.................................................. ...
View the complete article at:
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/colum...ugh-to-say.ece