The kind of judge that Ted Cruz would appoint to the Supreme Court if he is elected president would never have let the Texas senator seek the White House in the first place, renowned legal scholar Laurence Tribe says.
Tribe, a professor of constitutional law at Harvard Law,
tells London's Guardian newspaper:
"[With] the kind of judge Cruz says he admires and would appoint to the Supreme Court — an 'originalist' who claims to be bound by the historical meaning of the constitution's terms at the time of their adoption — Cruz wouldn't be eligible … Because the legal principles that prevailed in the 1780s and 90s required that someone be born on U.S. soil to be a 'natural born' citizen."
"Even having two U.S. parents wouldn't suffice for a genuine originalist. And having just an American mother, as Cruz did, would clearly have been insufficient at a time that made patrilineal descent decisive."
But ironically, the type of judge who Tribe, a liberal, admires and Cruz abhors, would okay the Lone Star State lawmaker's campaign, he says.
That type of judge — a "living constitutionalist' who believes the constitution's meaning evolves with "the needs of the time" — would say Cruz is eligible because "it no longer makes sense to be bound by so narrow and strict a definition."
But Tribe, who taught Cruz and President Barack Obama at Harvard Law, says, "There is no single, settled answer. And our Supreme Court has never addressed the issue."
Those legal and constitutional issues are "murky and unsettled," he adds.
The question of Cruz's qualifications has been a hot topic in recent days after national front-runner Donald Trump brought it up, leading to all the other candidates being asked about it. Cruz is mounting a serious challenge to Trump in Iowa, where caucus participants will be first to vote on February 1.
Cruz was born in Canada, but he says he is a natural-born American as required by the Constitution because his mother was an American citizen, though his father was a native of Cuba and a naturalized Canadian at the time.
Trump insists that if Cruz, who is second in the GOP polls, becomes the Republican nominee, the Democratic Party will file suit to get him removed from the ticket based on the fact he was born in Canada.
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