Alan Grayson Threatens To Sue If Ted Cruz Elected President: ‘Call Me Crazy But I Think The President Of America Should Be An American’

U.S. Representative Alan Grayson thinks that the President of the United States of America should be an American, but he isn’t part of the so-called “birther” movement that has sought President Obama’s ouster for so long. Grayson has taken aim instead at Ted Cruz, and threatened to sue should he actually get the Republican nomination.

Grayson, a Florida Democrat, brought up the issue of Ted Cruz’s citizenship in an interview with Fox News radio’s Alan Colmes.

After likening the slate of Republican presidential hopefuls to the cast of an imaginary show called “The Biggest Bigot,” Grayson allowed that Cruz doesn’t actually fit the bill, “because he’s technically not even an American.”

Alan Colmes, also a liberal, didn’t necessarily disagree with the assertion. The host pointed out that Cruz’s mother was an American citizen, but suggested that it is hypocritical of Republicans to have a problem with President Obama’s birth certificate, while Cruz was “literally born in another country.”

Grayson went on to threaten a “beautiful lawsuit,” if Cruz gets the nod from the Republican party.

“The Constitution says natural-born Americans, so now we’re counting Canadians as natural-born Americans? How does that work? I’m waiting for the moment that he gets the nomination and then I will file that beautiful lawsuit saying that he’s unqualified for the job because he’s ineligible.”

Readers who aren’t familiar with Ted Cruz’s history may wonder if there is any truth to Grayson’s accusation that the senator isn’t a “natural-born American,” and whether his “beautiful lawsuit” would hold any water.

The fact is that Cruz was born in Canada, like Grayson said. His mother is an American citizen, born in Delaware, while his father’s situation is a little more complicated.

Rafael Bienvenido Cruz was born in Cuba and fled to the United States during the Cuban Revolution. He remained in the country initially under a student visa, and was granted asylum after he graduated from school.

At the time of Ted Cruz’s birth, his parents were in Canada on business, and his father obtained Canadian citizenship during his time in the country. This conferred dual citizenship on Ted Cruz, which didn’t come to light until much later.

In 2013, The Dallas Morning News ran a story that pointed out that Cruz held dual citizenship. The Senator claimed that he had been told as a child that he was not a Canadian citizen, and he immediately moved to renounce his Canadian citizenship, which was completed in 2014.

Cruz’s father also renounced his Canadian citizenship, in his case to become a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2005. Since Cruz’s mother was an American citizen at the time of his birth, citizenship was conferred to the presidential hopeful in that way and at that time.

This isn’t the first time this issue has come up, and experts seem to agree that Cruz is eligible to hold the office of president, even if detractors like Alan Grayson don’t think he is. Last March, Neal Katyal and Paul Clement wrote extensively on the subject of what it means to be a natural born citizen for the Harvard Law Review.

“But as Congress has recognized since the Founding, a person born abroad to a U.S. citizen parent is generally a U.S. citizen from birth with no need for naturalization. And the phrase ‘natural born Citizen’ in the Constitution encompasses all such citizens from birth. Thus, an individual born to a U.S. citizen parent — whether in California or Canada or the Canal Zone — is a U.S. citizen from birth and is fully eligible to serve as President if the people so choose.”

If the reference to “the Canal Zone” sounds familiar, it’s because some of John McCain’s detractors sought to question his eligibility to run for president based on the fact that he was born in the Panama Canal Zone, which was an unorganized United States territory at that time.

Like Ted Cruz, John McCain was a “natural born citizen” due to the simple fact that both of his parents were citizens of the United States.

When asked if he was serious about filing a lawsuit to challenge Cruz’s eligibility, Alan Grayson responded, “Absolutely. Call me crazy but I think the president of America should be an American.”

Whether Representative Grayson likes it or not, it seems like Ted Cruz is, indeed, an American. So while Grayson may actually follow through with his threat to file a lawsuit, it is unlikely to amount to anything more than political theater.

[Photo credit AP Photo/Steve Cannon, AP Photo/John Raoux]