I think any 8 year President, there are some who would love to have them another term.

Send it to Fox News -- I recommend Hannity. Then stand back while heads explode with much foaming at the mouth.
R&K

Your loophole holds.

I don't see any ambiguity there, do you?

the poor and old people to take away what little they have, they can try to find a way to block any attempt at a "third" term.

relies on the 12th Amendment, which says (in relevant part): no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.

One argument is that if a person is constitutionally ineligible to be elected president, they are constitutionally ineligible to be president and therefore are ineligible to be VP (and thereby possibly become president).

I personally think its a weak argument because (a) its circular in nature -- it assumes that someone elected twice is ineligible to be president and (b) it doesn't address other routes of succession.

But its a cool question.

and most likely gets to the real argument, which is that my strategy runs counter to the "intent" of these sections of the constitution, taken as a whole.

but yeah, no one would suggest that obama isn't eligible to be secretary of state, and should his number come up in terms of the order of succession, it would be hard to argue that he can't then serve. then again, i have confidence that scalia the supremos would find an excuse and intervene, 5-4....

personally, i think use of the word "elected" in amendment xxii is what we call a "drafting error"....

The 22nd amendment and the Presidential Succession Act both passed congress in 1947.

Given the focus I tend to think they were being precise with the language they wanted to use.

the republicans at the time were pissed about fdr winning 4 elections, but they'd have been pissed if the next popular president was a democrat and served 4 or more terms in this roundabout fashion. and i don't think they were reserving this loophole for themselves.

perhaps it was some democrat who ensured the wording was as it was while republicans saw what they wanted to see....

In theory they could become Speaker of the House and still be 2nd in line.

two-term president is ineligible to BE president, but the "constitutional literalist" Republicans on the Supreme Court seem to read anything they want into the constitution. So this strategy would hand it to the SCOTUS and lead to another 5-4 presidential election.

without being eligible to be president. Madeline Albright was the most prominent recent example of someone who was in that position (Possibly Daniel Inouye was as well).

Inouye was born in Hawai'i before it became a state, but since it was a US Territory he was born a citizen, per the 14th Amendment. This is the same reasoning that allowed Barry Goldwater, born in the Arizona Territory before it became a state, to run for president in 1964.

There was also Henry Kissinger, Nixon's Secretary of State: 3rd in line but since he was a naturalized citizen he would have been passed over.

Theoretically, say Ford took office in August 1974, is elected in 1976; then re-elected in 1980, and leaving office in January of 1985. A Presidency lasting about 10.5 years. But there's that stipulation about "acting as President for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected president." So the period from August 1974 to November 1976 (general election) is slightly more than two years.. so he couldn't have run in 1980.

However-

Lyndon Johnson COULD have been President from November 1963 to January 1973 (being elected in 1964; re-elected in 1968).

Hmmm.

for only a matter of minutes on january 20th every 4 years.

because apparently the restriction is only on getting elected president, not on serving as president.

Technically, if you can get into the office without being elected, you can dodge the 22nd. You can't do it deliberately though.

Your scenario involves a conspiracy to win the White House with the deliberate intent of handing it off to someone else, and would likely end in impeachment and/or imprisonment for both the elected President, elected VP, and the reappointed former President. You're talking about Perjury of Oath (the elected politicians taking the oath of office with no intent to fulfill it), abuse of authority (using your power for personal gain in a way not intended by the law), conduct unbecoming, and possibly even dereliction. All of these fall under the definition of High Crimes and Misdemeanors, and can easily be used to unseat a President. And that's without even getting into the potential criminal conspiracy charges that would go along with your intent to defraud the government, people, and even your donors. Could you get in? Sure, but unless you have an absolute lock on both houses of Congress, the length of your third term would probably be measured in HOURS. That sort of conspiracy would transcend party politics. It would also probably destroy any shot their party had at the White House for decades, if it didn't just destroy their party completely. That outright fraud would have very few supporters even among the party faithful.

If it happened by accident, things might be a bit different. There's nothing stopping a former President from running for a House seat and getting selected as Speaker. If the President and Vice President left office through no fault of their own (hard to imagine happening, but it's theoretically possible that a war or terrorist attack could do it), the Speaker could ascend to the Presidency to serve a third term. Because no election occurred, the 22nd Amendment would not block them from constitutionally ascending to the Presidency (ironically, the 12th Amendment WOULD prevent them from ascending to the Vice Presidency).

The conspiracy theorists would go NUTS though.

- regarding the 12th amendment, i think the relevant part here is:

"But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States."

my argument would be that a bill clinton or a barack obama would eligible to "the office of president" and therefore to "that of the vice-president". neither would be eligible to be *elected* to the office of the president, but they're both eligible serve in it, provided they don't get there by way of being elected to it.

- as a matter of trivia, the speaker of the house doesn't actually have to be a member of the house. never happened, but in theory it could.

- i wasn't thinking about this being anything underhanded, i was thinking that the top of the ticket would openly run on a platform of resigning immediately and turning the presidency over to the popular current or former president running as vice-president. i get that if this were done as more of a surprise coup (appointing heinous as a low-level cabinet position and then everyone above resigns and suddenly dr. evil is in charge) sure, impeachment and removal certainly comes to mind as a counter (although most of the odious behavior at that point is from people who have already resigned...). i was thinking more someone like, well, fdr....

is whether or not Cheney is possibly up for another 1-2 terms as VP. AFAIK there would be nothing stopping him from serving as VP for another Republican (mis-)administration.

I remember reading that in one of our discussions on DU at some point in time. I think the discussion was if Jimmy C or Bill C could run as VP on a ticket. I think the answer was Yes for Jimmy and no for Bill.

we're not talking about anyone's eligibility for the office of the vice-president.

bill clinton could theoretically become speaker of the house, then the president and vice-president both resign. bill clinton immediately becomes president. the clause you cite has no bearing on this situation.

moreover, given this distinction, bill clinton is constitutionally eligible to the office of president, he's just not eligible to be *elected* to that office. so the clause you cite actually doesn't even bar him from being elected vice president.

Everyone, except the VP that is.

He was grandfathered in but I can see situations where a President may legitimately "finish the job" and run on that, the two-party system limits the choices of an opposition candidate but in terms of the current problems I favor the 2 term thing because we need new blood to reverse the surveillance state trend & holding & torturing prisoners with no charges.

local and state elections (judges, attorney generals, court clerks, school boards, sheriffs, police chiefs etc.)

This is where the voting rights issue means the most. A lot of Dem voters don't even know they can have a voice in electing local officials.

so if you believe he was legitimately elected just once, then he's still ineligible to be elected again (but he could serve).

on the other hand, if you believe he wasn't elected legitimately *either* time, then he *could* be elected! gack!

it prevents an elected 2-term president from being elected to vice-president.

2 terms served as President THEN the following happens:

- same person becomes Speaker of the House
- some scenario occurs under the 25th Amendment to remove both the President and VP from office (death, disqualifying disability, resignations)

at that point the person could lawfully ascend from the Speaker's chair to be President for the remainder of a term.

It's also possible, but increasingly unlikely, for this to be achieved through positions further down on the continuity of succession list.

Actual chance is real life of any of these scenarios happening is so remote it is not likely to ever happen no matter how long the US lasts as an independent nation.

if there were a vastly popular president, this situation could be engineered.

on the other other hand, if there were enough popular support to knowingly elected a ticket that was designed to resign immediately so that mr. popular could become president for a third time, then there's probably enough support for a repeal of the 22nd amendment. so you'd have to imagine a very popular two-term president with the same party having a lock on control of the house, yet also at least a dozen or so state legislatures dead-set against it. well, that last part certainly could happen lol!