In March 2016, he ruled against an attempt to have Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz removed from the ballot based on a claim that the candidates aren’t natural-born citizens and are therefore ineligible to run for president. The lawsuit claimed that both Cruz and Rubio became citizens without undertaking a legal naturalization process and argued that a person can’t simultaneously be naturalized and natural-born.
During the hearing, Judge Bowman explained that the while the Constitution requires a president to be natural-born, there is no binding definition of the term. He also rejected the lawsuit because the plaintiff failed to include the Florida Secretary of State as a defendant. Responsible for the Division of Elections, the Secretary of State's office alone can be compelled to eliminate a candidate from a ballot. Judge Bowman further noted that there were no grounds for the lawsuit since the plaintiff wasn’t injured by Cruz and Rubio being on the ballot.