The media is treating it as serious news that some moron in Texas has filed a lawsuit challenging the eligibility of Ted Cruz to run for President. The bad news for the clown who has filed this suit is that he is an attorney, which means that he could face both sanctions and professional disciplinary action for what is a clearly frivolous suit. That’s not, however, how the media is reporting it:

Republican presidential contender Ted Cruz should be disqualified from the race because he isn’t a “natural-born citizen,” a fellow Texan claims in a “birther” challenge filed against the senator in a U.S. court.

The suit seeks a court definition of the term to clarify whether Cruz — who was born in Canada to an American mother — can or can’t serve if elected.

“This 229-year question has never been pled, presented to or finally decided by or resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court,” Houston attorney Newton B. Schwartz Sr. said in his 28-page complaint. “Only the U.S. Supreme Court can finally decide, determine judicially and settle this issue now.”

Claiming that “time is of the essence” because of the rapidly approaching Iowa caucuses and March 1 Super Tuesday primaries, Schwartz asked that the case be expedited for resolution by the nation’s highest court as soon as possible.

Rule 11 of the The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure specifically state that by filing a suit, an attorney who signs a pleading is warranting that “the claims, defenses, and other legal contentions are warranted by existing law or by a nonfrivolous argument for extending, modifying, or reversing existing law or for establishing new law[.]” Both the comments to this rule and also the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct make it clear that an attorney has an affirmative obligation to conduct research to determine if the lawsuit he is filing is frivolous.

There are over a dozen federal opinions, all released within the last decade, which clearly establish that a private citizen does not have standing to challenge the constitutional eligibility of a person to be President. Regardless of the legal merits of the issue, no random jackass has the right to walk into court and demand that they answer the question in order to satisfy either their own intellectual curiosity or based on some theory that, as President, the allegedly ineligible person might do something that would harm them. One of Orly Taitz’s plaintiffs even alleged the specific harm that Obama had ordered him to deploy to a combat zone, and this was found to be sufficient.

There’s no colorable argument that this person can suffer any justiciable harm just from Ted Cruz being on the ballot in Iowa. This is a frivolous lawsuit filed for the sake of publicity and to harass Ted Cruz.