If it helps: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell - whom Cruz called a “liar” on the Senate floor in July - says the upper chamber Republicans won’t issue a resolution on whether Cruz is eligible to run for president.
I still hope that Hillary Clinton endorses a resolution introduced by Democrats. Just to watch Republicans vote against it.
If we let John McCain run for President, there is zero chance we’d prevent a Puerto Rican who met the other requirements from running for President. Hell, we let Mitt Romney’s father run for President and he was born in Mexico!
You’re reading that backwards. That clause is what allowed the presidents before Van Buren to take office.
You’re may be right, but there is room for uncertainty:
The issue wasn’t settled with McCain. They gave him an exemption with a non-binding resolution rather than addressing the issue…
…Because it was only McCain’s eligibility at stake. With a Puerto Rican you’d open up the whole can of worms of ALL Puerto Ricans getting the vote, and Puerto Rican statehood. (Otherwise, imagine an Puerto Rican candidate that Puerto Ricans weren’t allowed to vote for.)
John McCain was a veteran hero, and he was born overseas because his parents were serving the country in the military. This isn’t the case for Cruz for example…
…Which is why Mitch McConnell can safely declare that Cruz won’t get a McCain style resolution of his own.
A non binding resolution is an opinion, not a law. It does not settle a constitutional question, nor create a legally meaningful exception.
That’s my point. It didn’t settle the issue at all.
But that is the ONLY thing that is mentioned in the Constitution. Originalists believe the Constitution is fixed. It says what it says and there is no “interpretation” needed. If you’re saying that that ONLY applied at the beginning then what does the Article mean? Does that mean the “natural born Citizen” clause is also void? If not, then we cannot ignore the “or a Citizen of the United States” clause either. The fact is that that parenthetical clause applies to BOTH of those clauses. The problem is: Tribe, McManamom and others are taking the “at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution” clause out of the article. If, as you argue, I am reading it backwards, then what qualifications apply AFTER the adoption of the Constitution? You can’t just remove that clause because the time is past.
Basically, you are arguing to ignore a very crucial two letter word: Natural-born citizen OR a citizen of the United States at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution.
Given that there was no United States at the time of the Adoption of the Constitution, unsurprisingly, there were also no natural-born Citizens of the United States, thus without adding the second half of the sentence non of the Founding Father would have been eligible for the Presidency. Creating the anomaly of setting up a new state while preventing the first generation of its citizens from the highest office in the land.
There wouldn’t have been an eligible natural-born Citizen till 1797, the very earliest, and that is under optimum conditions, that the right candidate was born on 5th July 1776 and on turning 21 showed themselves to be presidential material…
Originalist, doesn’t preclude basic reading comprehension.
You mean “till 1804”, the US not existing until 3rd September 1783, the date that Great Britain recognized America’s independence.
(If US independence didn’t require British acknowledgement, then it would seem logical that Confederate independence didn’t require Union acknowledgement. A contention the Union vigorously disputed.)
Thanks for updating that. I was guessing on this one. No idea how / when the citizenship of revolting subjects is officially constituted. When do you loose the status as a subject of your archenemy and when do you gain the right to become a citizen of your revolutionary new state? Quite a legal conundrum with philosophical implications (as Hannah Arendt explored).
Unarguably, and most relevantly for this discussion, at the time of the adoption of the US Constitutions, there were no natural-born US Citizens eligible for the Office of the President, therefore the second half of the sentence was unavoidable at the time, and is irrelevant now.
And yet it didn’t. It’s an absurdity to suggest a state in the act of decolonisation requires recognition from the illegitimate colonial regime. And an absurdity with no basis in international law by the way.
You don’t get granted independence, you take it, and assert it, and if the coloniser fails to regain control they may or may not recognise the new state. It is of little interest.
Rules for regions secceeding are somewhat different and, though it was not jurisprudence at the time of the U.S. Civil war, the successor state in international law is the entire colonial administrative unit.
So territory seceding from Britain didn’t require British recognition because that territory won militarily. Territory seceding from the US did require US recognition because the US won militarily.
That has nothing to do with international law or jurisprudence at any time. The term you’re looking for is “might makes right.”
But US policy is that territory attempting to secede cannot do so unless the parent state recognizes it. Might makes right: It fought and won a civil war to uphold this policy. Happy Independence Day come September 3rd.
No, it’s not what I actually mean. They are different cases in international law. One is a legitimate decolonisation which may or may not be recognised whether the newly formed state has achieved a military victory or can defend itself militarily. So for example the state I am a citizen of declared the general election of 1919 a plebiscite on nationality, and when the republicans won an overwhelming majority formed a government. At no point after that did we win a military victory, nor were we ever capable of one. At no point after that did England assert control over ireland and eventually recognised the inevitable and created a constitutional route via the statute of Westminster for other states to do the same.
Sometimes the imperial project loses support at home. Sometimes it’s because right is right.
There was a lot of sympathy in Britain for the Americans and the will was not there. Mind you there was a lot of popular support for Napoleon.
Yes, I should have checked Wikipedia before opening my big mouth, rather than the other way round.
Mea culpa.
That the British territory started off as colonies meant little a century later.
As you say, Ireland left British control with British recognition - after recognition that was inevitable and creating a constitutional route. Canada left in stages - with British recognition of each change in status along the way.
Which means that they have no bearing on the US or Confederate States seceding, since those were unilateral declarations followed by a war of secession. Those were both settled by “might makes right.”
What the US proved through “might makes right” - when the Confederate States tried it - is that unilateral secession is not allowed. And so by US policy, independence happened when Britain recognized it.
Hold on: in that case, what on Earth was the Anglo-Irish War of 1919 to 1921 about?
An attempt to assert control. A fairly half hearted attempt.
Their big strategy was imprisoning the leadership without trial rather than a serious military assault. Pointless in so many ways.
It is you who brought up the pointless irrelevant American civil war which has nothing to do with the issue of decolonisation.
I repeat my point: independence is not the gift of the coloniser to give. That is merely the imperialist fantasy. Imperialism is the assertion that might is right, an assertion that history contradicts regularly but which imperialists fail to learn.
I enjoy my independence every day thanks.
It is you who brought up decolonization. Again that the British territory started as a colony made no difference a century later. It was British territory just like the southern states were American territory. If hanging on to existing territory is imperialism, then it counts for the southern states too.
YOU were the one who wrote “You don’t get granted independence, you take it, and assert it, and if the coloniser fails to regain control they may or may not recognise the new state.” The side that wins militarily, has the final say. Might makes right.
I can repeat my point too: What the US proved through “might makes right” - when the Confederate States tried it - is that unilateral secession is not allowed. And so by US policy, US independence happened when Britain recognized it in 1783.
This is boring for everyone. I never said take control by force, in fact my example was taking control by parliamentary democracy. I never said assert control by force. And my example was of failing to take control through a failure to convince the people.
And I, obviously never stated that the US civil war had anything to do with decolonisation. Because both sides were actually colonists.
I did say that independent states are not granted independence by colonial powers. Because that would be a profoundly silly thing to say. A sovereign state/ a republic declares its own validity. The imperial state has no say in that.
You asserted otherwise and are factually incorrect.
