I am not a fan of Ted Cruz. My reasons are not relevant to this column, but my antipathy for him might cause you to dismiss the discussion that follows. At issue is whether he meets the U.S. Constitution�s requirements for eligibility to be president. Donald Trump repeatedly asserts that Cruz does not; Cruz takes the position that he does.

Neither of those candidates nor anyone else has filed a lawsuit to seek a judicial resolution of the issue. An objective reading of the relevant law indicates the answer is not clear. For what it is worth, I think people should have the right to vote for Cruz for president, even though it is my hope that few people do so. Various law professors around the country, however, have opined that Cruz is not eligible to be president. So if he becomes the Republican nominee � or if he�s elected president � protracted litigation seems certain. The U.S. Supreme Court would have to resolve the case. A period of great uncertainty would follow until the Supreme Court rules. Actions taken by him as president � until that ruling is announced � might or might not be unconstitutional.

The facts are not in dispute: Rafael Edward, �Ted,� Cruz was born in Calgary, Alberta, on Dec. 22, 1970, to Eleanor Wilson (then a U.S. citizen) and Rafael Bienvenido Cruz, who was not a U.S. citizen. The elder Cruz was from Cuba, but left Cuba in 1957 to study in the United States. He was granted asylum, but in 1967 he moved to Canada. Both the elder Cruz and Eleanor Wilson had been living in Canada for three years before the birth of Ted Cruz. The elder Cruz became a Canadian citizen through Canada�s naturalization process in 1973.

Ted Cruz became a Canadian citizen by virtue of his birth there in 1970. He also became a U.S. citizen by virtue of his mother�s status as a U.S. citizen. Ted Cruz did not renounce his Canadian citizenship until 2014 but has always asserted that he is a U.S. citizen. It seems clear he had dual citizenship until 2014.

The U.S. Constitution prescribes: �No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.�

No judicial opinion has been entered interpreting this constitutional provision. So, if Ted Cruz becomes the Republican nominee, you can expect someone to ask for a judicial ruling on his eligibility to actually serve as president.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, one of the nine currently serving justices, is a firm believer that the U.S. Constitution must be interpreted as it is written and as the language chosen by the drafters of the Constitution understood that language. The term �natural born� is not otherwise defined in the Constitution. Justice Scalia likely will opine that we must look to the meaning that phrase had when the Constitution was ratified.

The U.S. Constitution was drafted in 1787 and was ratified in 1788. It was agreed that on March 4, 1789, the government specified in the Constitution would begin. The First Congress convened under the Constitution on March 26, 1790, and thereafter adopted the Naturalization Act of 1790 to prescribe the manner in which a person could become a U.S. citizen. A portion of that act prescribed: �And the children of citizens of the United States that may be born beyond Sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born Citizens: Provided, that the right of citizenship shall not descend to persons whose fathers have never been resident in the United States.�

It seems reasonable to presume the words �natural born� had the same meaning in 1790 as they did in 1787 when the Constitution was drafted. It also seems reasonable to assume the First Congress believed that in the absence of the 1790 Act, children born outside the United States would not be considered as �natural born� citizens.

In 1795, Congress repealed and replaced the 1790 Act with the Naturalization Act of 1795, which provided, in lieu of the language quoted above in the 1790 Act, as follows: �... the children of citizens of the United States, born out of the limits and jurisdiction of the United States, shall be considered as citizens of the United States: Provided, That the right of citizenship shall not descend to persons, whose fathers have never been resident of the United States�� Note that the words �natural born� were not repeated in the 1795 Act � nor have those words been used in similar statutes since their use in the Constitution and the 1790 Act.

In 1868, the 14th Amendment was adopted. The first sentence of that amendment says: �All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.� That language implies that to be a citizen, a person either is born in the United States or is naturalized. Birth within the physical limits of the United States or subsequent naturalization appears to be the only two methods for becoming a U.S. citizen under this amendment. Thus �natural born� in the Constitution could refer only to birth within the geographic limits of the United States.

One interpretation of the authorities cited above is to conclude Cruz is a naturalized but not a �natural born� citizen because his mother, even though a U.S. citizen at the time of his birth, was not physically within the United States when he was born. Because Congress prescribed that his mother�s status as a citizen conferred U.S. citizenship upon him, this conferral of citizenship depends upon a statute that provides for naturalization as a means to that citizenship. Thus, naturalization is a method of acquiring citizenship apart from the �method� of being born within the boundaries of the United States. But becoming a citizen by virtue of naturalization is not comprehended by the provision of the Constitution that prescribes that eligibility to serve as president is only granted to those who are �natural born� citizens.

The other approach, of course, is to conclude that birth to a U.S. citizen-mother, even though outside the United States, nevertheless makes Cruz a �natural-born� citizen because citizenship can be �inherited� at birth and that is the same thing as having that citizenship conferred by birth within the boundaries of the United States.

I would rather people have the right to vote for Cruz than be denied that opportunity for the same reasons I oppose term limits: They take choices away from the electorate for arbitrary and capricious reasons having nothing to do with who could do the best job if elected. But such a pragmatic approach might not win the day at the U.S. Supreme Court.

We live in the �interesting times� described in the old Chinese curse, don�t we?