March 29, 2015
Supreme Court of the United States
c/o Clerk of the Court
Supreme Court of the United States
1 First Street, N. E.
Washington, D. C. 20543
Your Honors:
Please accept this letter as my formal request for the Court to take whatever action it deems necessary to insure that the intensions of the Founding Fathers as delineated in the Constitution of the United States of America regarding the qualifications, requirements and restrictions of who is eligible to serve as President of the United States are observed and adhered to in the approaching election for that office scheduled to be held on Tuesday, November 8, 2016 and, in so doing, to clarify this highly important matter for all future elections and for any situations that might arise where a person may be in the line of succession for that office but who does not qualify according to the parameters as delineated in Article II Section 1 of the Constitution; specifically,
“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.”
On Monday, March 23rd, 2015, the Junior Senator from the State of Texas, Mr. Rafael Edward "Ted" Cruz declared himself to be a candidate for President of the United States even though it is a known fact that Senator Cruz was born in Calgary, Alberta in the country of Canada on December 22, 1970 and is therefore, by definition ineligible to serve as President of the United States even if he should be elected to that office since he is not a “natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution” so it is clear in his declaration as a candidate for that office that he is ignoring the guidelines as set down by the Founding Fathers, is trying to challenge the language of the Constitution and redefine it to his own desires or is expecting that his efforts to be elected to the office of President of the United States will be unchallenged and then, if he should be elected, claim that the will of the electorate will have in effect redefined the Constitution, which, therefore should allow him to serve in that office.
The Constitution does not address running for the office of President only serving as President. However, it is, in my opinion, that an affront or challenge to the Constitution by anyone, Senator or not, must be quickly and aggressively confronted. There may be a tendency by Senator Cruz’s political party members to handle his candidacy for the Office of President by simply defeating him in their party primary process. However, if it were just left to that, it would be, in effect, endorsing the legitimacy of the Senator’s campaign and his underlying motive to “rewrite” or “redefine” the Constitution on the subject of who can and who can not serve as President and it would serve to open the door for people to think that the Constitution some how morphed into saying something it had not.
It was not clear to me as to how to deal with Senator Cruz’s actions against the Constitution. It was my understanding from a well respected source on Constitutional Law who was interviewed on National Public Radio, namely Sarah Duggin, professor of Law at the Catholic University of America's Columbus School of Law, that the definition of “natural born citizen” had not been specifically addressed by the Supreme Court of the United States and that to bring a case it would have to be done by someone with appropriate cause to do so. I include a part of the interview of Professor Duggin conducted by Robert Siegel on March 23, 2015 4:42 PM ET and offer the following URL address to the location on the Internet where the entire interview is posted both as a video and in transcript form: http://www.npr.org/2015/03/23/394906486/canadian-born-cruz-faces-potential-hurdle-to-presidential-aspirations
SIEGEL: Has this [“natural born citizen”] been litigated? And has the Supreme Court made clear what that means?
DUGGIN: The Supreme Court has never made any sort of ruling on this subject. There have been some lower court cases, but those were dismissed on grounds that that the people bringing them were not necessarily the proper parties. They were dismissed on standing grounds.
SIEGEL: You mean to have standing you have to be somebody who would be disqualified from the presidency because they've been naturalized?
DUGGIN: (Laughter) No. You could be someone, for example, I believe, who's running against a candidate who is arguably not a natural-born citizen. But you probably can't simply be a voter with a general grievance. And that's what the earlier cases involved.
I make this request Your Honors as a declared and active Independent Write-In Candidate for President of the United States with a direct and vested interest in having the candidacy of anyone who would not be legally permitted to serve as President of the United States, such as Senator Cruz, to be so informed in such a manor as the Court deems fitting and proper and to so inform the officials throughout the United States who are charged with conducting the above mentioned election for the Office of President of the United States so as to insure that Senator Cruz’s name or any other potential candidate who is not eligible to serve as President of the United States is excluded from any of the election ballots that will be used to help conduct the election for that office.
I want to express my thanks to the Court for its kind attention and for its much appreciated understanding regarding the format of this request in that it was prepared without the assistance of an attorney familiar with the format that would normally have been expected to have been used to submit such a request. My campaign is conducted without spending the many millions of dollars that have become the hallmark of the modern day political campaigns for almost any office, let alone for the Office of President of the United States. I accept no contributions of any kind and spend as close to no money as possible in doing what is necessary to alert the electorate to my best thinking for our nation and what I would do as President to fulfill the pledge I would make when being sworn into that office:
"I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
This request is exemplary of my resolve and intention to do just that. The Constitution has been trivialized by Senator Cruz in my estimation, understanding and opinion by his pretending that his having been born in Canada does not exclude him from serving as President of the United States. This letter is the best I am able to do at this juncture to preserve the integrity of the Constitution and to defend it against those who, left unchecked, would undermine it.
If the Court requires that such requests as this be submitted in a certain way, please provide me with the details of that format or direct me to where I can find it and I will do what I can to recast my request as soon as possible since I am hoping to deal with this issue at the Court’s earliest opportunity as time is of the essence with the election being fewer than 589 days away as I prepare this letter for the consideration of the Court.
Respectfully submitted,
Drew Kopf
Independent Candidate for President of the United States
3000 Hempstead Turnpike
Suite 305
Levittown, NY 11756
Telephone: (516)501-0744
Fax: (516)501-0753
e-mail: drew@drewkopf.com
website: www.drewkopf.com |
