The more Ted Cruz’s popularity among conservatives surges, the more attack angles the media will attempt. The Cruz version of the birther question has already made the rounds once, but that doesn’t mean the media have put it to bed. Just today Yahoo! News posted a National Constitution Center piece asking if Ted Cruz is eligible to be President of the United States.

The article by the NCC’s Sarah Helene Duggin considers the constitutional nuances of the “natural born citizen” clause.  

The 2016 presidential election is more than three years away, but potential candidates and their supporters are already contemplating the next campaign. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas—now well-known for his role in the recent federal shutdown—and California’s celebrity former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger are among those whose names are circulating. But neither Cruz nor Schwarzenegger was born in the United States, and the Constitution provides that “[n]o person except a natural born citizen, or a Citizen at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President.”

Duggin’s conclusion: It’s complicated.

For Senator Cruz—who was born in Calgary, Alberta, to an American mother and a Cuban father—the question is more complicated. There is a strong argument that anyone who acquires United States citizenship at birth, whether by virtue of the 14th Amendment or by operation of federal statute, qualifies as natural born. The Supreme Court, however, has never ruled on the meaning of the natural-born citizenship requirement. In the absence of a definitive Supreme Court ruling—or a constitutional amendment—the parameters of the clause remain uncertain.

Duggin’s piece essentially agrees with PolitiFact’s previous summation of the Cruz question:

So is he eligible? The vast majority of legal thought and arguments indicate he is.

Is there the tiniest sliver of uncertainty? Yes, there’s that, too.

Duggin closes out the piece with a call for a constitutional change:

Finally, the natural born citizenship clause is both an anomaly and an anachronism. The way in which the clause differentiates among United States citizens is contrary to the overall spirit of the Constitution; the risk that foreign nobility will infiltrate our government is long past; and place of birth is a poor surrogate for loyalty to one’s homeland in our increasingly mobile society and our ever more interconnected world. The best solution would be to amend the Constitution, as many legislators on both sides of the aisle have proposed over the years. In the absence of an amendment, the clause should be narrowly interpreted.