An elderly Texas lawyer has filed a case questioning Senator Ted Cruz’s right to be president of the United States. The Texas senator was born in Canada to an American mother and has seen his eligibility for office challenged in the last few weeks.
An 85-year-old lawyer from Houston has filed a case seeking a declaratory judgement on Cruz’s eligibility. The controversy concerns Cruz’s status as a “natural born citizen,” a phrase in the U.S. Constitution that has never been subject to judicial scrutiny.
The attorney behind the case, 85-year-old Newton B. Schwartz, said he was anxious to bring the suit as the first Republican caucus in Iowa is just weeks away. Schwartz is also reportedly a potential Bernie Sanders supporter.
Republican front runner Donald Trump raised the issue of Cruz’s citizenship in last night’s Fox News Business debate. Trump said it would be unfortunate if he picked Cruz for the VP slot only to have Democrats file a suit against him.
Cruz pointed out that a liberal legal scholar at Harvard, Laurence Tribe, is the most prominent voice questioning his eligibility. The conservative Texas senator seemed to imply that attacks on his citizenship were promoted by his liberal opponents.
The growing Ted Cruz “birther” controversy is an unwelcome distraction for the candidate who has been making up ground against Trump in Iowa and nationally and whose debate performance was well-received.
Donald Trump was a major promoter of the Barack Obama birther movement, despite the president having been born in Hawaii.
The Texas lawsuit appears flimsy and “rambling”, however and some unlikely Cruz supporters believe the birther question is a non-starter.
