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Saturday, February 06, 2016

Federalist Society Debate on Ted Cruz's Eligibility to be President

On Friday, February 5th at Harvard Law School, Larry Tribe and I debated whether Ted Cruz is a natural born citizen.

Larry argued no, at least if one is an originalist like Cruz, and that in any event, the question is unsettled.

Speaking as an originalist, I argued that the best interpretation of the Constitution is that Ted Cruz is a natural born citizen and eligible to be president. I used the question of natural born citizenship as a way to introduce some of the ideas in Living Originalism, as well as the distinction between thick and thin conceptions of original public meaning. The debate is a series of short clips, one following the next.