5 Responses to “Regardless of Canadian birth, Ted Cruz survives ballot challenge in New Hampshire”

1. bob69
   November 28th, 2015 @ 7:48 am

   That is because states will never require more than filling out a form and enclosing the filing fee to get on the ballot. They say anything else requires a court decision. It may then be taken to court where the finding of, “no standing”, will end the process.

   Remember Keith Judd, filing in the West Virgina Democrat primary in 2012? Judd is serving a 17 year sentence in a federal prison in Texarkana, Texas. He sent in his paperwork and $2500 fee and was placed on the ballot. Election officials in West Va. knew he was filing from prison, but it did not matter. He got 41% of the vote against Obama.

   America’s presidency, usurped by Obama, is now available for the taking, born in America Canada or Kenya, it doesn’t matter, we are all just one big unhappy family.

2. dr_taitz@yahoo.com
   November 28th, 2015 @ 7:57 am

   Judd got out of prison and sued Obama for elections fraud. I represented Judd, the judges rule that the cases filed before the election were filed too early and the cases filed after the election, were filed too late. The judges together with the US attorneys and Attorney General sold out this nation.

3. Steve Wittlake
   November 28th, 2015 @ 9:23 am

   https://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2015/11/regardless-of-canadian-birth-ted-cruz-survives-ballot-challenge-in-new-hampshire.html/

   Regardless of Canadian birth, Ted Cruz survives ballot challenge in New Hampshire

   Updated at 6:30pm with a no comment from Cruz aides, and comment from one person who challenged Cruz’s eligibility

   Updated Wednesday at 8:30am with comment from another challenger

   WASHINGTON – The New Hampshire ballot commission today rejected efforts to kick Canada-born Sen. Ted Cruz off the primary ballot based on his birth outside the United States.

   That clears a key legal and political obstacle as the Texas Republican seeks the GOP nomination for president. But it’s not a clear win on the question of eligibility.

   Rather, the panel found that with the law of eligibility so murky, it can’t second-guess the senator’s own claims that he passes constitutional muster. Neither the U.S. Supreme Court nor any other authority has explicitly ruled that someone like Cruz — born on foreign soil, with one American parent – can or cannot be president.

   “It would be really nice if somebody would get this issue of law decided who has authority to decide constitutional issues, so every four years we don’t have this come up again,” said Manchester attorney Brad Cook, a Republican who chairs the 5-member New Hampshire Ballot Law Commission.

   Canadian birth certificate for Sen. Ted Cruz
   Canadian birth certificate for Sen. Ted Cruz

   Three people challenged Cruz’s eligibility after Secretary of State William Gardner accepted Cruz’s application for a spot on the Feb. 9 GOP primary ballot.

   Two asserted that Cruz is not a “natural born citizen” – the phrase used in the Constitution when discussing eligibility to serve as president – because he was born in Calgary, Alberta.

   (Read the New Hampshire filings here.)

   A third challenge hinged on the fact that one of Cruz’s parents, his father, Cuban-born Rafael Cruz, was not a U.S. citizen at the time of Ted Cruz’s birth.

   In filing for a spot on the New Hampshire ballot, “He’s signing an affidavit saying he meets all of the qualifications,” Cook said.

   The commission heard arguments Tuesday for about an hour before agreeing to keep Cruz on the ballot.

   An attorney for Cruz, Bryan Gould, submitted a 24-page brief ahead of time and represented Cruz at the hearing. He argued that two of the people challenging Cruz lacked standing – one is from New York, the other from Pennsylvania – and that even on the merits, Cruz’s American citizenship at birth carries the day.

   Cruz argued that only the Electoral College has the authority to judge whether someone is eligible to be president and, on appeal, the U.S. Congress.

   He has long maintained that he is eligible to run and to serve as president, because his mother’s American citizenship made him a U.S. citizen from birth. Most, but not all, constitutional scholars agree.

   “I’m really disappointed that they copped out,” said Carmon Elliott, a Pittsburgh, Pa., retiree and a registered Democrat.

   He crafted one of the challenges, also filed by a friend who lives in New Hampshire to ensure it wasn’t dismissed for lack of standing. In 2008, Elliott filed a similar challenge aimed at Sen. John McCain, the eventual GOP nominee, who was born in the U.S.-controlled Panama Canal Zone.

   “People owe a natural allegiance to the place they were born,” Elliott said, suggesting that while Canadian roots might seem innocuous, voters likely would wonder about a future commander-in-chief born in, say, Germany. Allowing this precedent, he said, violates the wisdom of the Founding Fathers and a series of Supreme Court rulings that say that to be a “natural born citizen” means being born in the United States.

   Those cases don’t deal directly with any presidential candidate, however.

   “For them to say there is no definitive ruling – that’s just spurious and incorrect,” he said of the New Hampshire commission. “Unfortunately, it looks like it will be just continue to be unresolved. I don’t know of any other setting or format that can honestly adjudicate this concern.”

   Cruz campaign aides declined to comment on today’s ruling.

   The senator held dual citizenship until he formally renounced his Canadian citizenship in June 2014. That was nearly a year after The Dallas Morning News pointed out that under Canadian law, his birth on that country’s soil conferred automatic citizenship whether or not he wanted it, and regardless of the fact he was previously unaware of it.

   Four years ago, Cook presided over a challenge to President Barack Obama’s eligibility to seek reelection. Then, the allegation was that Obama’s Hawaii birth certificate was a fake. The presumption was that if it were shown that Obama was born in Kenya, he would be ineligible to serve as president.

   Obama and Cruz have little in common politically. Biographically, they share a common trait: their mothers were American born, which means, as Cook noted, that Cruz’s reasoning would also apply to Obama, even if conspiracy theorists were right about where he was born.

   “That shows how this issue has evolved… Now people are saying it doesn’t matter if you’re born outside the country,” Cook said.

   But the ballot commission’s role is limited to reviewing decisions by the New Hampshire secretary of state, to make sure there’s no mistake in allowing someone on the ballot.

   “If there is a clear ruling on some issues that somebody clearly doesn’t meet, we would apply it. If there is a constitutional uncertainty about the meaning of something – which from my research and from all the stuff that was thrown at us at the commission there certainly is about the natural born citizen thing — we don’t undertake to make that decision,” Cook said.

   In the Cruz case, he said, “There’s not a clear reason to find that the secretary of state was wrong in allowing the person to run.”

   Cruz is one of 58 candidates who qualified for the primary ballot in New Hampshire, “about 40 of whom you’ve never heard of,” Cook said. “They pay their $1,000 and they get their moment of glory.”

   The commission also rejected other challenges on Tuesday.

   A Manchester, N.H., resident asserted that Bernie Sanders can’t run as a Democrat, because he was elected to the Senate in Vermont as an independent.

   Cullen Fergus, a former state GOP chairman, challenged Donald Trump’s ballot application, arguing that the billionaire businessman’s views don’t align with the Republican Party.

   Another challenge came from Robert Laity, a resident of Tonawanda, N.Y., who describes himself as founding president of the Society for the Preservation of Democracy and Human Rights, and who has called Obama a traitor. He challenged four Republicans — Cruz, Sen. Marco Rubio, former Sen. Rick Santorum, and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal — on the grounds that at birth, each had at least one parent who wasn’t a U.S. citizen.

   Jindal has dropped out.

   On Wednesday, Laity said he, too, was disappointed. And he suggested that Cruz, a Harvard-educated lawyer who once clerked for Chief Justice William Rehnquist, is a hypocrite.

   “If he’s such a constitutionalist, and he puts his hand up and says he’ll follow the Constitution – all except Article 2?” Laity said.

   Related
   Dual citizenship may pose problem if Ted Cruz seeks presidency
   Donald Trump says Ted Cruz’s Canadian birth “could be a difficult problem” for 2016 bid
   Ted Cruz birth certificate. Canadian citizenship questionnaire.
   Sen. Ted Cruz: “I will renounce any Canadian citizenship”
   No, Canada: Sen. Ted Cruz has formally shed his dual citizenship
   Sen. Ted Cruz: shedding Canadian citizenship was worth it

   Updated Wednesday at 8:30am with comment from another challenger.

4. Steve Wittlake
   November 28th, 2015 @ 9:42 am

   The Automatic Naturalization Certificate made Ted Cruz a Citizen not a Natural Born Citizen.
   Revoking his Canadian Citizenship makes the Automatic Naturalization worthless.

5. Happy Holidays
   November 28th, 2015 @ 12:10 pm

   Anyone who supports Cruz is just pranking themselves off!

   And his numbers are so low, that him and Rubio and Santorum are not going to make any difference, anyway!

   But…the (R)’s best not mess with the Constitution…or they will be exposed to what they’ve done:…to override the Constitution and try to get elected, when they are NOT eligible to be in the Oval Office! And ….

   Cruz knows this and I’m tired of him and Rubio sending me emails to support their nefarious plans!

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