Thomas H. Lee quoted in an Economist article about Donald Trump’s renewed scepticism about Ted Cruz’s very eligibility to be president. The billionaire White House aspirant noted that Mr Cruz was born in Canada to parents of mixed heritage: while his mother was an American citizen, his father was born in Cuba.
Thanks to an op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times by Fordham law professor Thomas Lee and another op-ed from Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe in the Boston Globe, Mr Trump’s latest claim suddenly has scholarly support.
To be clear, neither Mr Lee nor Mr Tribe believes Mr Cruz is ineligible for the presidency. Both scholars say, however, that strictly applying the interpretive theory known as “originalism” may lead a judge to question whether the circumstances of his birth fit the Article II standard. According to Mr Lee’s reading, the reigning view of natural-born citizenship at the founding held that in the case of a baby born outside the country’s borders, citizenship could be inherited only through the father. Since Mr Cruz’s father wasn’t an American citizen, baby Ted would, under the founders’ view, be Canadian, not American.
Read the entire Economist op-ed.