Not right now, Schwarzenegger can’t - there is a specific provision in the Constitution that says he cannot. My entire point is that, going by a strict reading, you cannot say the same about Clinton or GWB - if they wanted an outright ban, then why didn’t they put it that way in the 22nd Amendment, rather than specifically saying “elected” multiple times?
Besides - the 22nd Amendment “means” whatever five or more of the Supreme Court justices at the time say it means.
Once again, if they are not qualified to run for President, they are not qualified to be appointed for President. The link I provided, and the boldened part of the quote I provided, specifically states that they must first qualify to properly be in the line of succession.
The issue has never come before a court because nobody’s ever tried it. But I think any lawyer would tell you which way a court decision would go.
The judges would rule that being able to be elected is part of what makes you eligible to be President. So a person who is barred from being elected President (under the 22nd Amendment) is constitutionally ineligible to be Vice President (under the 12th Amendment). Nor could a Speaker or cabinet official become President under the terms of the 25th Amendment for the same reason.
I’ll also assume (although I don’t think this is as certain) that a court would rule that if the Electoral College couldn’t reach a majority and the members of the House and Senate selected the President and Vice President, then that would qualify as an election. So you couldn’t backdoor in a two-term candidate through Congress. The same principle would prevent the President and Congress from appointing a two-termer to fill a Vice Presidential vacancy.
Because the people writing an amendment can’t think of every crazy scenario that somebody might invent.
For example, there’s nothing in the Constitution that explicitly says the President has to be alive. Does that mean we could elect Abraham Lincoln President again? Nor does the Constitution say the President has to be human. So could we elect a dog President?
To answer questions like this, we have a court system that is empowered to interpret what the Constitution means. And as I posted above, the courts would say that being unable to be elected President makes you ineligible to be President.
But get enough well-placed Americans to say that his “spirit” is that of a born American, and ta-da!
I am a lawyer, and I disagree.
Lot of unjustified fiat in this thread. We must, as always, look to the text, which nobody but the OP (and Bricker) have done.
Amendment 22: “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice…” Note use of the word “elected.” There is nothing in this text restricting who can serve as president.
Amendment 12: “…But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.” So, Yakov Smirnov (naturalized), Robert Mugabe (non-citizen), and my sister (too young) can’t be VP, certainly. But Bill Clinton? Certainly ineligible to be elected president. But is he ineligible “to the office” of president? The 22d Amendment doesn’t prohibit it, as we’ve seen above. I see nothing in the text here that mandates a different conclusion, although admittedly it’s not inarguable.
This disposes of Czarcasm’s objection – if the Presidential Succession Act’s language about “failure to qualify” doesn’t apply if, as my analysis suggests, a two-term president is unqualified for the office, even though he is unqualified for the ballot.
–Cliffy
Absurd. The Constitution does say that the president must be a citizen. Words have meanings, and citizens are humans, not dogs. Your parade of horribles simply isn’t a possible reductio.
–Cliffy
Couldn’t we just repeal the 22nd with a new amendment? I think we should, but that’s another thread altogether.
Okay, the Constitution says “all persons born in the United States are citizens of the United States”.
So now show me where it says that only a human being can be legally considered as a person. You won’t find it, of course, because it isn’t true. As we’ve seen non-human entities like corporations are legally defined as people. It’s right there in the very first section of the US Code. But while there’s a whole list of things which are considered people: homo sapiens, corporations, companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies, joint stock companies, and individuals - the list doesn’t say it’s complete.
Now I’d argue that it’s obvious that a dog isn’t a person. But you’re arguing that we have to “look at the text”. So show me the text in the Constitution where it says a dog isn’t a person.
Didn’t we more or less have a situation like this when Madelaine Albright was Secretary of Defense? She wasn’t born in the US, so she wasn’t eligible for the office of President, despite being sixth in the line of succession. IIRC, it was understood that, should it come to it, the succession would skip her and go to the Attorney General. I’d imagine that, if a VP were somehow elected who was ineligible for the office, the VP would similarly be skipped if the president couldn’t serve. Admittedly, this would render the office of vice president even more irrelevant than usual (a handy trick in and of itself) but I don’t think it would present any sort of constitutional crisis.
Secretary of State.
No, there’s no legal requirement for a Secretary of State to be eligible to the Presidency as a condition of their office. So they just get skipped over.
But the Constitution says that one of the conditions of being Vice President is you have to be eligible to be President.
:smack:
Is there any difference between these two sentences:
(A) Kevin is eligible to become President.
(B) Kevin is eligible to be elected President.
If the text does not answer the question, then it’s resolved according to the rules of statutory construction. If a court, employing traditional tools of statutory construction, ascertains that a particular Constitutional provision is the law, then it is the law and must be given effect.
See, e. g., a zillion cases, from FEC v. Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, 454 U. S. 27 (1981); to Webster v. Luther, 163 U. S. 331 (1896).
Guess what the rules of statutory construction say about your idea that a dog is a person?
That dog don’t hunt.
From where I sit (IANAL) : text says “all persons born…” not “all persons born or established” so its scope would be applicable only to a “natural person”. Under The Law, natural persons are individual human beings.
The larger thought experiment here seems to be an extension of the debate over absolute literal textualism v. original intent v. living document in reading the relevant language in the Constitution. For many it would seem obvious that the drafters of the relevant articles and amendments meant that nobody is ever again to hold the office of President for longer than 10 years total, no matter what the means of accession, and that you are do not place someone in the line of succession who could potentially run afoul of that purpose. But it does not actually say that in so many words.
Heck, when the first POTUS vacancy happened there were people arguing the Constitution wasn’t explicit in that the VP ascended to the full rank of President. It took Tyler’s actual accession and exercise of the office to have that cleared up. The Constitution is not a Law Code or a Rules Act that has to contemplate every possible circumstance, just set up a general framework for the specific details to belegislated or regulated.
It’s interesting that you bring up the 10 years rule. That rule was, I assume, to allow presidents such as Lyndon Johnson, who had suceeded to the Presidency more than halfway through the term, to be able to hold office for two more full terms after that term ended.
The other rule is, of course, that a person cannot be elected to the Presidency more than twice.
But what if, say Obama, were re-elected in 2012 and more than halfway through his second term, Joe Biden was somehow outed? Would Obama be able to nominate Bill Clinton as his Vice President, the idea being that Bill Clinton would still be under his 10 years if suceeding to the Presidency for the remainder of the term?
The question would remain same as it is in the thread – the “10 year rule” is shorthand. The actual parameters of what’s allowed is the text, which does explicitly require occupants of the office of VP to be qualified for the presidency, which brings us back to the current subject of debate – “is qualification for the office different from qualification for election to the office?”
–Cliffy
Are you expecting an argument from me? I’m in full agreement with you. If I were a judge I’d say it’s obvious that the legal meaning of a person doesn’t include dogs.
I was arguing against the people who were insisting on a “strict reading” and saying we can’t assume anything that isn’t explicitly stated.