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Originally Posted by classhandicapper
That was a really good article on the subject. It really cleared it up for me.
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I think the argument that Cruz is ineligible is kinda strong. It certainly should be settled beforehand, because who knows what the court might say. Of course I think he has little chance of being the nominee and zero chance of being elected if he were, but it still should be settled so we don't have these dumb arguments about eligibility with every cycle.
In my mind, the key to the argument is that the presidency is a constitutionally defined job and one of the branches of government. So even if you have a law says explicitly that if you are foreign born of US citizens, you are to be designated "natural born citizen", that law is totally irrelevant. That applies to everybody and in all circumstances BUT determining presidential eligibility.
Why? Because...Congress can make no law to change the eligibility requirements of the presidency. That would be be overriding the Constitution and a breach of the separation of powers. Changing such requirements would require a constitutional amendment. Just as if they passed a law that said that president must be college educated, or something like that -- blatantly unconstitutional, right? So whatever definitions or traditions about who gets to be a citizen (that isn't a natural born citizen) that are in laws but not the Constitution itself don't apply, and can't apply to presidential eligibility. Presidential eligibility MUST be defined in the Constitution, and the Constitution only. (Put another way, it is only what the Constitution says about it that matters, nothing else. Except of course a supreme court decision interpreting what the Constitution says about it.)
So... it is up to the court to decide if "natural born" includes foreign born or not, BUT not because of any law. And then one has to ask...if it was supposed to include foreign born, then why was a law ever necessary to make them citizens also when it was already right there in the Constitution? So the very fact that there were/are laws specifying that foreign born to US citizen parents are to be considered natural born can actually be used as an argument that there is a single exception to that -- the president, where those laws constitutionally cannot apply.
