Reports: Chicago court to hear case to knock Cruz off White House ballot

[elljay]

34. It is different than you may think

I am not a Constitutional lawyer, though I am an attorney and have studied Constitutional Law This issue doesn't break the way you may be expecting across liberal/conservative lines. As Laurence Tribe pointed out, an originalist, a believer in a "dead" Constitution (meaning basically that the Constitution should be interpreted according to the views of its authors) is more likely to find Cruz not a natural born citizen than a loose constructionist, a believer in a "living" Constitutionalist (meaning the Constitution can be reinterpreted as society evolves). In other words, Scalia would have been more likely to find Cruz ineligible than Ginsburg. I was actually looking forward to Scalia getting this case to see how contorted his decision would be. I don't think Kennedy is 100% in the dead Constitution school so I don't think there would be a 4-4 tie. I also don't think that Alito, Thomas, and Roberts will want to disqualify their party's candidate. The main value of such a suit, IMHO, would be to leave the question up in the air during the election in the hopes of dissuading Republicans from voting for a potentially ineligible candidate. This election is looking like one for the history books!