TED CRUZ MUST SHOW NATURALIZATION PAPERS TO KEEP HIS U.S. SENATE SEAT

[Jim Lane]

49. In this instance, there is a residency requirement - on Cruz's mother.

"Natural born citizen" isn't defined in the Constitution, but the obvious meaning is that the person is a citizen automatically at birth, without any subsequent naturalization proceedings. In the case of a child born outside the U.S. to one citizen parent and one noncitizen parent (Cruz's situation), there have been different laws in effect over the years concerning whether the child is a citizen. At the time of Cruz's birth, the law was that the citizen parent could pass on citizenship to the foreign-born child only if the parent met a residency requirement. I think it was that the parent have lived in the U.S. for at least ten years, including at least five years after having attained the age of 14.

AFAIK there's no serious question about Cruz's mother's citizenship. She was a U.S. citizen from birth (Delaware IIRC) and never changed that. The OP's linked article is baseless speculation. There's also no serious question about her residency. She was born and raised here, took an undergraduate degree here, and then lived here a few more years before her temporary stay in Canada. The question that's not answered in the Constitution, though, is the procedure for establishing eligibility, including burden of proof. One scholar has asked half-jokingly if Mrs. Cruz saved her utility bills from the 1960s to prove she met the residency requirement.

Given that Congress counts the electoral votes, there's a good argument for saying that Congress decides eligibility questions at the time of the count. In the absence of any good-faith question about Cruz's mother's residency or citizenship, I think it would be wrong for Congress to reject votes for Cruz unless and until she can produce those old utility bills or rent receipts or whatever. We'll have to use other methods to keep Cruz out of the White House.

Incidentally, the law I've described is why the birther argument that Obama was born in Kenya, although it's also utterly without supporting evidence, is not legal nonsense. His mother was only 18 when he was born. She didn't (couldn't) meet the five-year residency requirement. Therefore, if she had inexplicably traveled to Kenya to give birth and then taken steps to fake a U.S. birth, Obama would not be eligible. Cruz's mother was well past her 19th birthday so that problem didn't arise.