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Trenton: A New Jersey judge has ruled Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz can appear on the New Jersey primary ballot, deciding against challengers who argued the Canadian-born Texas senator was not a "natural-born citizen".
Administrative law judge Jeff Masin said arguments that a person born in another country could not be a natural-born citizen were "not facetious" and the subject would "never be entirely free of doubt" without a US Supreme Court ruling.
A judge has ruled Canadian-born Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz is a "natural-born citizen". Photo: AP
But "the more persuasive legal analysis is that such a child, born of a citizen-father, citizen-mother, or both, is indeed a 'natural-born citizen' within the contemplation of the Constitution," he said in a 27-page decision.
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Masin had said on Monday he expected Lieutenant Governor Kim Guadagno, New Jersey's Secretary of State, to review his decision. Guadagno has to transmit the names of candidates to appear on the June 7 ballot to county clerks by Thursday.
"This recommended decision may be adopted, modified or rejected by the Secretary of State, who by law is authorised to make a final decision in this matter," he wrote.
The judge heard two challenges to Cruz's eligibility earlier this week, one from a group of South Jersey residents, and the other from a law professor who lives in Maryland and said he is running as a write-in candidate for president in New Jersey.
Both argued that Cruz is not a natural-born citizen – a constitutional requirement for running for US president – because he was born in Alberta, Canada. Cruz's mother was born in Delaware, and his father in Cuba.
In his decision, Masin said a recent Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court ruling that found Cruz eligible to appear on the ballot was the only other decision he knew of addressing the merits of Cruz's eligibility.
Because the US Constitution never defined "natural-born citizen", its meaning must be determined from English common law, Masin said.
He described a "historical understanding" of several types of citizenship, including one based on the location of one's birth, and another on one's ancestry. Under the latter concept, Cruz could "arguably be a 'natural-born citizen'", Masin said.
He noted that in the early 1700s, Parliament declared that children "born out of the king's ligeance, whose fathers were natural-born subjects, are now natural-born subjects themselves."
But he also said there was dispute over what parts of English common law the Constitution adopted. The answer is "not necessarily as obvious as some commentators may suggest," Masin said.
He weighed arguments by two law professors that the English common law adopted by the US at the time of the Constitution did not include the enactments by Parliament.
Masin said a 1790 naturalisation act provided that a child born outside the US to a US citizen was natural-born.
In his conclusion, Masin said "absolute certainty as to this issue is only available to those who actually sat in Philadelphia" and adopted the Constitution.
Victor Williams, the Columbus School of Law professor whose challenge was heard on Monday, said he was confident Guadagno "will not allow the ineligible Ted Cruz on the New Jersey ballot".
Williams said the Constitution requires the president to "be born on the soil", and said Congress does not have "the magical ability to convert the Canadian-born Ted Cruz into an American-born Ted Cruz".
Cruz's attorney Shalom Stone had argued the state did not have the authority to decide the matter. Instead, the question of whether Cruz is a natural-born citizen is reserved for voters, the Electoral College and Congress.
Other states have rejected challenges to Cruz's eligibility on procedural grounds.
Philadelphia Inquirer