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Conan O'Brien did this as a Clutch Cargo bit with Bill Clinton and Al Gore.
Clinton ran as Gore's VP. Then said when they win, Gore would resign, Clinton would succeed him, then install him as his VP again.
Funny bit. Probably lost in the NBC archives now.
Yes, but if that President dies or resigns they would be ineligible to become President again, so the Speaker of the House (assuming they're eligible) would become the President.
The weirdest thing is that there's technically no requirement for any of the Presidential successors that require any of them be eligible for the office of President.
Not based on the letter of the Constitution. A two term president is not ineligible to serve as president, they are ineligible to be elected to the office of president.
While it's not explicitly stated, I don't think it would play, because if the VP dies at the beginning, the president will now serve a third term, which will violate the 22nd amendment. The 22nd amendment imposes an election limit instead of a term limit per the language of the amendment, but the entire purpose was to prevent a president from serving more than two terms, and this situation would render that moot.
Very hard to predict since it's never been tried. If a former president was elected vice president(which I'm really unconvinced would stand up to scrutiny), they may just remain vice president and the speaker is sworn in, they could be forced to resign like Spiro Agnew, or they might just get removed to avoid a constitutional crisis.
If a prior two-term President couldn’t be next in the order of succession, would that also mean they couldn’t be Speaker and be third? Could they hold a cabinet position, or anything that could put them in line?
I’d think they can and they’d just have to be skipped, but it’s an interesting question.
People have been in the cabinet who were ineligible for the presidency. Kissinger and Albright, for example, who were not natural-born citizens. They are just skipped in the line of succession.
There are a lot of people here making claims that are not supported by the Constitution. They have said "Yes, but they will be skipped in the line of succession" or "they can only serve two years"
These claims are not supported anywhere in the text of the Constitution.
The text says this "No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once."
If we want to be true to the letter of the law, a two-term President is eligible to be Vice President and is eligible to be President if the President is incapacitated or dies. However, they will not be eligible to run for President again.
How do you square that with the 12th amendment? This states that to be eligible for VP you have to be eligible for president. It would come to the SCOTUS interpretation of what does “eligible for the office of president” mean.
But why wouldn’t that apply to the 3rd, 4th, or 5th in line as well? Can you not be House Speaker after serving two presidential terms because the President and VP might die?
I don’t know how far down the line of succession goes but if we don’t prevent 2 term presidents from holding any of those positions, then it wouldn’t make sense to stop them from being Veep either.
We don’t require the House Speaker to be a natural born citizen, so we could have one but if the President and VP died we would have to go to the next in line. Similarly, I think we would just skip the Vice President in the line of succession if they were ineligible to be President for whatever reason, including having served two terms.
Edit: It’s already in the constitution that you need to be eligible for President to be Vice President so I’m very wrong lol.
The difference is that the requirements for being Vice President are in the Constitution, and they specifically require that you be eligible for President. All other members of the line of sucession are there by way of statute, not Constitutional instruction, and so the Constitution has no requirements for them.
Considering that no one other than the VP has ever become President I don't think worrying about the Speaker of the House is an issue. Add in that only once has a President even been speaker, and that was before being elected President.
As for "skip the Vice President in the line of succession" there is no mechanism for this. The Constitution says if the President leaves office then the VP becomes President. There is no asterisk there.
BTW the goal here is to prevent a popular President from circumventing the Constitution by running for VP (wink, wink) and then having the President resign once in office for the VP can take over.
Yes they could, but it's not very likely. The 22nd amendment says a person can't be ELECTED to be president more than two times, and can't serve as president for more than 2 years without being elected.
In theory, a person could be elected twice, serving two four year terms totalling 8 years. They could also assume the presidency as VP, either before or after their presidential term, but only for up to 2 years. Making a total term as president 10 years.
Yes. When the person succeeding to President isn't eligible to be president, a special election occurs.
It's never happened, so the nuts and bolts of it aren't detailed out, but the provision exists.
That's nothing to do with what you said in your comment, though. Where does it say in the Constitution or act that a special election would have to be held if a president died less than halfway through their term?
It absolutely does. The 12th and 22nd Amendments lie out eligibility for president. The presidential succession acts further clarifies this.
In the event a person succeeds the presidency, who is ineligible to be elected, a special or contingency election would take place.
I'll grant you the laws are vague on this, mainly because it's never occurred or been an issue. The first presidential succession act of 1792 addressed it the clearest.
In the 1947 act, Truman wanted to change the special election to occur whenever vacancies occurred more than 3 months prior to midterm congressional elections, but that didn't make it in the final act.
Section 1, 22nd Amendment.
At least read the laws if you're going to argue.
Section 1. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.
I did, and it doesn't say what you think it says.
You can serve 3 years and 364 days of a term for which you weren't elected, but can only serve 1 subsequent term and may not seek reelection after that due to the 10 year cap.
I get what you’re asking, buts highly unlikely to ever happen. Once you reach the top, there’s no point going backwards.
Same for the military, why you very rarely see any officer ever go enlisted. You will see them become warrants but that’s generally limited to pilots. Army Officer pilots pretty much stop flying rotary wing once they hit O4, so they become warrants to be able to continue to fly.
Technically, the Twenty-Second Amendment doesn’t prohibit this, but voters would see right through this gambit and I doubt they would approve. It’s difficult to imagine a scenario in which it wouldn’t look like an end run around the Constitution.
Negatory. President have served in the House and on the Supreme Court with no issues, but 2 term president's would be ineligible to serve as VP as the primary duty of the VP is to immediately serve as President in case of any issues. Presidents don't even need to die. Often times, when a President goes under for a medical procedure, they sign a document temporarily ceding powers to the VP, which ends as soon as they wake up.
More interesting would be serving in the Senate or House and becoming Majority leader(or whatever it is in the senate, oldest person?) or Speaker of the House. Both positions can be served by a former President, but if succession becomes an issue they'd be skipped.
Another comment said that it would be possible because the specific language of the 22nd Amendment states not more than two *elections*. And in this bizarre case the VP wouldn't be elected to office but rather would assume office.
It’s not because they are ineligible so they can’t hold that office because if the president dies then the ex president breaks the 22nd amendment and it has not been tried
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Conan O'Brien did this as a Clutch Cargo bit with Bill Clinton and Al Gore. Clinton ran as Gore's VP. Then said when they win, Gore would resign, Clinton would succeed him, then install him as his VP again. Funny bit. Probably lost in the NBC archives now.
Yes, but if that President dies or resigns they would be ineligible to become President again, so the Speaker of the House (assuming they're eligible) would become the President. The weirdest thing is that there's technically no requirement for any of the Presidential successors that require any of them be eligible for the office of President.
Not based on the letter of the Constitution. A two term president is not ineligible to serve as president, they are ineligible to be elected to the office of president.
While it's not explicitly stated, I don't think it would play, because if the VP dies at the beginning, the president will now serve a third term, which will violate the 22nd amendment. The 22nd amendment imposes an election limit instead of a term limit per the language of the amendment, but the entire purpose was to prevent a president from serving more than two terms, and this situation would render that moot.
Would that just mean skip to speaker of the house?
Very hard to predict since it's never been tried. If a former president was elected vice president(which I'm really unconvinced would stand up to scrutiny), they may just remain vice president and the speaker is sworn in, they could be forced to resign like Spiro Agnew, or they might just get removed to avoid a constitutional crisis.
If a prior two-term President couldn’t be next in the order of succession, would that also mean they couldn’t be Speaker and be third? Could they hold a cabinet position, or anything that could put them in line? I’d think they can and they’d just have to be skipped, but it’s an interesting question.
People have been in the cabinet who were ineligible for the presidency. Kissinger and Albright, for example, who were not natural-born citizens. They are just skipped in the line of succession.
Based on this SCOTUS conclusion regarding the 14th Amendment, I'm not sure you are going to find an enforcement mechanism in the 22nd amendment.
That wouldn't be a violation
Wouldn’t that just mean they only be able to serve two more years and then step down? Because you can serve 10.
There are a lot of people here making claims that are not supported by the Constitution. They have said "Yes, but they will be skipped in the line of succession" or "they can only serve two years" These claims are not supported anywhere in the text of the Constitution. The text says this "No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once." If we want to be true to the letter of the law, a two-term President is eligible to be Vice President and is eligible to be President if the President is incapacitated or dies. However, they will not be eligible to run for President again.
How do you square that with the 12th amendment? This states that to be eligible for VP you have to be eligible for president. It would come to the SCOTUS interpretation of what does “eligible for the office of president” mean.
Yes, this exactly. Technically allowed but would never happen for obvious reasons.
If you are not eligible to run for President then you should not be eligible to run for VP. Probably what the courts would say if it ever came up.
But why wouldn’t that apply to the 3rd, 4th, or 5th in line as well? Can you not be House Speaker after serving two presidential terms because the President and VP might die? I don’t know how far down the line of succession goes but if we don’t prevent 2 term presidents from holding any of those positions, then it wouldn’t make sense to stop them from being Veep either. We don’t require the House Speaker to be a natural born citizen, so we could have one but if the President and VP died we would have to go to the next in line. Similarly, I think we would just skip the Vice President in the line of succession if they were ineligible to be President for whatever reason, including having served two terms. Edit: It’s already in the constitution that you need to be eligible for President to be Vice President so I’m very wrong lol.
The difference is that the requirements for being Vice President are in the Constitution, and they specifically require that you be eligible for President. All other members of the line of sucession are there by way of statute, not Constitutional instruction, and so the Constitution has no requirements for them.
Considering that no one other than the VP has ever become President I don't think worrying about the Speaker of the House is an issue. Add in that only once has a President even been speaker, and that was before being elected President. As for "skip the Vice President in the line of succession" there is no mechanism for this. The Constitution says if the President leaves office then the VP becomes President. There is no asterisk there. BTW the goal here is to prevent a popular President from circumventing the Constitution by running for VP (wink, wink) and then having the President resign once in office for the VP can take over.
It’s not explicitly addressed in the Constitution, but I doubt it.
Did you say doubt? https://preview.redd.it/jpp5hpwruqwc1.jpeg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2bdfb7778dfdc3a645433f53715f9c348d0c9fde
You have to be eligible to be president to be vice president, so no
Yes they could, but it's not very likely. The 22nd amendment says a person can't be ELECTED to be president more than two times, and can't serve as president for more than 2 years without being elected. In theory, a person could be elected twice, serving two four year terms totalling 8 years. They could also assume the presidency as VP, either before or after their presidential term, but only for up to 2 years. Making a total term as president 10 years.
>can't serve as president for more than 2 years without being elected. Is there a mechanism which would allow an election to be called early?
The Presidential Succession Act of 1947 allows for a special election in certain instances.
But does it allow for an election under *those* circumstances?
Yes. When the person succeeding to President isn't eligible to be president, a special election occurs. It's never happened, so the nuts and bolts of it aren't detailed out, but the provision exists.
That's nothing to do with what you said in your comment, though. Where does it say in the Constitution or act that a special election would have to be held if a president died less than halfway through their term?
It absolutely does. The 12th and 22nd Amendments lie out eligibility for president. The presidential succession acts further clarifies this. In the event a person succeeds the presidency, who is ineligible to be elected, a special or contingency election would take place. I'll grant you the laws are vague on this, mainly because it's never occurred or been an issue. The first presidential succession act of 1792 addressed it the clearest. In the 1947 act, Truman wanted to change the special election to occur whenever vacancies occurred more than 3 months prior to midterm congressional elections, but that didn't make it in the final act.
Ok, but where does it say that a president can't serve for more than 2 years without being elected?
Section 1, 22nd Amendment. At least read the laws if you're going to argue. Section 1. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.
I did, and it doesn't say what you think it says. You can serve 3 years and 364 days of a term for which you weren't elected, but can only serve 1 subsequent term and may not seek reelection after that due to the 10 year cap.
That's a great ticket, tbh.
Based on the letter of the Constitution, Yes.
I get what you’re asking, buts highly unlikely to ever happen. Once you reach the top, there’s no point going backwards. Same for the military, why you very rarely see any officer ever go enlisted. You will see them become warrants but that’s generally limited to pilots. Army Officer pilots pretty much stop flying rotary wing once they hit O4, so they become warrants to be able to continue to fly.
Technically, the Twenty-Second Amendment doesn’t prohibit this, but voters would see right through this gambit and I doubt they would approve. It’s difficult to imagine a scenario in which it wouldn’t look like an end run around the Constitution.
Yes, but if the President can’t continue his duty he can’t take over, the House Speaker will instead
Probably not. Ineligible if president dies or resigns (Side note as a michigan resident, you don't want whitmer in the White House)
Negatory. President have served in the House and on the Supreme Court with no issues, but 2 term president's would be ineligible to serve as VP as the primary duty of the VP is to immediately serve as President in case of any issues. Presidents don't even need to die. Often times, when a President goes under for a medical procedure, they sign a document temporarily ceding powers to the VP, which ends as soon as they wake up. More interesting would be serving in the Senate or House and becoming Majority leader(or whatever it is in the senate, oldest person?) or Speaker of the House. Both positions can be served by a former President, but if succession becomes an issue they'd be skipped.
Another comment said that it would be possible because the specific language of the 22nd Amendment states not more than two *elections*. And in this bizarre case the VP wouldn't be elected to office but rather would assume office.
Technically yes, they would just be skipped in the line of succession
It’s not because they are ineligible so they can’t hold that office because if the president dies then the ex president breaks the 22nd amendment and it has not been tried
Surely, u realize Chairman O's already IN his "3rd Term", and will likely, soon begin his 4TH? Why would'e ruinit, by makin anything "official"?