Sen. Ted Cruz
NewsMax.com is following a report that a Pennsylvania judge has ruled that Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s name can appear on that state’s GOP presidential primary ballot in April, as first reported by LawNewz.com, adding that the story got scant attention despite its ramifications.
While the Wall Street Journal reported on the ruling in a blog post, LawNewz writer Rachel Stockman writes that not much else has been said, despite front-runner Donald Trump’s earlier assertions that Cruz’s eligibility would be tied in the courts for years.
“This weekend, it occurred to me, this issue has faded from the public eye. The major media outlets stopped talking about it (maybe because Trump has moved on to other things.) But, it remains an important and largely unresolved question,” Stockman writes.
The suit – and others across the country – have focused on whether Cruz can even serve as president because he was born in Canada.
There are two schools of constitutional thought on that question. While there is no debate that the president must be a “natural born citizen,” some legal scholars say that Cruz meets that criterion since his mother was a U.S. citizen. Others argue that while his mother’s citizenship does grant him citizenship at birth, it does not make him a “natural born citizen” allowed to serve as president since he was born on foreign soil.
Other courts have tossed out the so-called “birther” claims against Cruz on procedural grounds, including that the plaintiffs didn’t have standing to bring the suits, Stockman notes.
But Pennsylvania Senior Judge Dan Pellegrini actually ruled on the merits of the case and found Cruz to be a natural born citizen.