Trump Shill Files Birther Lawsuit Against Ted Cruz’s Eligibility

Donald Trump has stated he is willing to file a frivolous “birther” lawsuit to challenge Ted Cruz’s birth and his eligibility to be President of the United States.  Such a lawsuit sounds awfully like it meets the test of an improper purpose, not warranted by existing law, a baseless argument for an extension of the law, and not supported by the evidence or the law. Now that such a suit is going forward, I hope to see the ashes of law licenses on the east wind.

In Trump’s usual style, he didn’t articulate a single fact or law that could support such a claim.  Rather, he said things like “[t]hat’s an interesting case, wow. That sounds like a very good case. I’d do the public a big favor.”  On 14 January 2016, Houston Lawyer Newton Schwartz filed a suit in his own name against Sen. Cruz requesting the Court’s guidance (a declaratory judgment suit) as to whether Sen. Cruz is eligible to be president. It is unclear whether Schwartz is associated with Mr. Trump. But the timing of the suit, the pandering in it, and the birther language used are pretty strong indicators.

It is so painfully obvious that Senator Cruz is eligible to be president that advocates of the argument that he is ineligible must bend over backwards into misrepresenting English common law to justify their positions. The alternative is they merely assert it without providing an iota of legal argumentation. Ann Coulter falls into the first category, Mr. Schwartz falls into the latter.

Ann Coulter’s incoherent ramblings on the topic include several admissions that at birth Cruz was a citizen. Her contention, however, is that being a citizen at birth is not enough to be a natural born citizen, which is a complete departure from what the law and case law states.  8 U.S.C. § 1401(g) clearly articulates that a person born to a citizen, no matter where he is born, is a citizen at birth and not naturalized. That is a natural born citizen. She keeps articulating that Sen. Cruz is not a natural born citizen under the Constitution; of course she cannot define what that means and instead relies back on the birther style nonsense.

The declaratory judgment action by Mr. Schwartz includes palpable political pandering to Trump with such woeful lines as “Donald Trump speaking in Clear Lake, Iowa to a his usual overflow (purportedly by him twice the seating capacity) large rally.”  (Comp. at 7). The Complaint must articulate the issue before the Court– instead, it panders to Trump and references outdated issues. As if being badly written was not enough (just pick a page and read it), the Plaintiff’s Complaint could have easily applied its own citations and discovered the answer it seeks.

The term “natural born citizen” is not defined by the U.S. Constitution.  That is not surprising as the Constitution is a frame of a government and not a comprehensive dictionary.  It is, as usual, left to the Courts.  The Supreme Court defined “natural born citizen” as:

The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners.

Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1875).  Please note that Happersett is cited ONLY for the definition of natural born citizen and not to resolve underlying question.

The briefest of legal research reveals the applicable law, the definition of the terms, and the answer to the question presented: Is Ted Cruz eligible to be President?

Answer:  Yes.

Applying the facts to 8 U.S.C. § 1401(g) and Happersett, Sen. Cruz’s mother was born in Delaware, lived in the United States most of her life, moved to Canada as a U.S. Citizen, and then gave birth to Sen. Cruz.  At his birth, his mother was a citizen of the United States, therefore, at birth, Sen. Cruz was a citizen of the United States, and therefore, being a citizen upon his birth, was a natural born citizen, and thus, under the U.S. Constitution, eligible to be president.

There are two possible categories of citizenship, naturalized after birth or born a citizen. Cruz was born a citizen.

Q.E.D.

Such birther nonsense is put to rest. Can we please start talking about important issues like the Federal Reserve’s $4 trillion balance sheet? Anyone?