Pretty sure he’d be eligible to be President in the case of some sort of calamity that required Cabinet members to be *appointed *President. However, he’d be limited to finishing out the remainder of the previous elected President’s term, as he’s ineligible for re-election, having already been elected to two previous terms.
Cite- 22nd Amendment Section 1:
Obama in the Cabinet? That’s almost as funny as Obama on the Supreme Court. Unlike the President, the buck actually does stop with Cabinet officials. If Obama ran HUD for example, and HUD had a major failure, Obama would have to resign to protect his President and there goes what legacy he has.
Obama as UN Secretary General, now that’s actually useful, since the job is primarily ceremonial and involves giving speeches.
Power is not cumulative. An ex-president who took a cabinet post would have only the power of that post but not the power of that post and the power of an ex president. Same with going back to Congress. There’s a reason why most of them just do foundations and speeches and stuff.
I’ve heard speculation about a SCOTUS appointment, but it’s my understanding that the SecGen has to be from a third world (or “developing”) country.
I’ll happily accept appropriate correction.
THat’s often been the tradition, although there have been two from small First world countries(Austria and Norway). But there’s no rule on it and Obama is popular with world leaders. I think he’d easily win a General Assembly vote.
I expect that either Russia or China would veto at the P5 level, so it wouldn’t even come to a General Assembly vote. That’s why the General Secretary quite often is someone who is not particularly well known from a country that is neither powerful nor strongly aligned.
And despite his personal popularity, I have a hard time believing all the little countries in the General Assembly would vote to give the Secretary job to the most powerful country in the world.
Would you call South Korea a “third world” developing country?
I think the SecGen rotates by continental groupings (with the Americas as one). The last European was Kurt Waldheim in the 1980s.
Then a Peruvian, Egyptian (one term), and Ghanaian took the office.
These rotations may last a while.
Maybe, but the timing isn’t easy for it. The obvious seat to go after would be Mark Kirk, since he’s a Republican Senator from Illinois. But Kirk is up for reelection in 2016, and while he’s probably one of the most beatable Republican Senators (Republican in a blue state, middling approval ratings, has health problems, poor fundraiser) that election is in November of this year. I don’t see a mechanism by which Barack can run for Senate while still President without a heap of political problems.
Actually in addition to the political problems (mainly the issue with being President while also campaigning for a Senate office, it’ll look like you’re not doing your job), there’s also the issue of Senators per the Constitution assume office on the 3rd day of January. President’s on the 20th day of January. This means that I believe come the 3rd day of January Obama would be constitutionally ineligible to assume the Senate seat (if he were to win the election), because you cannot hold an executive branch office and a legislative branch office concurrently. So Obama would have to be willing to resign the Presidency on 1/2, let Biden be actual President for 18 days, and that also presents a lot of problems.
If Kirk loses (and I am betting he does), the Democrat that beats him in 6 years might lose an election against Barry, so too might Dick Durbin in 2020 when he’s up for reelection. But then the issue is, what is the perception of a former Democratic President primarying a Democratic Senator just to get back into government?
I actually don’t think the idea of Obama reentering the Senate is fanciful, I just think the specific mechanisms at this time make it unlikely. I don’t think Hawaii is a realistic option either, they have two Democratic Senators, one is a minority female, and I just think it unlikely Obama would want the optics of “going after” either of those seats.
I think if Kirk’s term ended in 2018 there’d be more of a realistic chance.
I think he’s going to want a loooooong vacation first. Besides, better to let President Clinton establish herself first before coming back into the spotlight.
Assuming he was interested in the Senate …
He could always do something kind of like what Hillary did after Bill’s term ended. Namely move to a state with favorable politics and a senate seat up for reelection 2 years hence. For Obama that’d be in 2018 and he’ll have 33ish states to choose from. Yes, he’s from Illinois and his political base was there pre-2008. But one problem he won’t have in 2018 in whichever state he might pick is name recognition.
I’m not thinking that’s what he really wants. Senate is a good gig until you’ve had executive power. After that you want to run things, not just bicker about how things ought to be run. Hence my earlier suggestions about creating and operating the Obama Foundation for World Progress or whatever he names it.
And I’m pretty sure he didn’t think it was a good gig the last time he was there. Why would he want to go back when he hated it the first time?
Obama is going to do what all Presidents do: whatever makes him happy. Having an actual job is probably not on the list. Most ex-Presidents express happiness at being able to just not worry about politics anymore, even those that loved it like Bill Clinton.
If Obama did want to get back into government, there’s no reason to opt for a high office. John Quincy Adams was content to spend his time in the House. If Obama wanted a challenge, he could try running Chicago. Yeah, right.
Obama hated the US Senate? I hadn’t heard that.
THe convention is that the SG is not from a “great power” although what exactly that is is not clear. Certainly the U.S and Russia, and probably France and UK and CHina. But Germany? Italy? India? One of the nuclear states?
He could move to a small town in Maine and run for mayor.
After 1/20/17, Obama is likely to write his memoir, establish his presidential library and rake in the bucks from public speaking. I think it’s very unlikely he would want to be, or any successor would wish to have him, in the Cabinet.
Nitpick - Chief Justice of the United States: Who’s America’s top judge? - The Straight Dope
The Constitution does not require that the Speaker be a member of the House, so there is no minimum age. It happens, for obvious reasons, that there has never been a Speaker who has not been a member of the House.
“Hate” might be overstating it. He wrote in The Audacity of Hope, I believe, about how disappointed he was to find that his colleagues were talking past each other most of the time, and that the chamber of “the world’s greatest deliberative body” was rarely filled for meaningful and substantive deliberations.
I don’t see why. He did teach constitutional law, which AFAIK makes him qualified. He was a senator, which makes the senate more likely to confirm. And unlike in an elected office, or a Jimmy Carter type of role, he wouldn’t often, or ever, get into any direct confrontation with a successor President.
If Obama doesn’t like the idea of retiring young, it’s an important and intellectually interesting job where it is much easier to deal with the security concerns than if, say, became a full-time professor. Go for it.
If Hilary is the next President, and the Senate is still controlled by the GOP, it is going to be hard to get a new justice confirmed. I can’t think of any other liberal for whom it would be easier to obtain confirmation.
He has the paper qualifications, but has had a habit of getting rejected by the Supreme Court ,often by laughable margins. What’s worse is that his solicitor general has usually made absurd arguments in the process of losing those cases. His record is not of one who actually seems to know anything about the Constitution.
Besides, at the confirmation hearings he’d have to explain every one of those adverse decisions. Why did he think that the government had the right to take property without compensation? Why did he think that the government could apply civil rights law to who church schools chose to teach their students? WHy did he think he could make religious businesses cover medicine they believe caused abortions? Why does he think the government can ban books if they help a political campaign? Why did he favor a handgun ban in 1996? Why did he think states could be forced to expand Medicaid? Why did he think that people could be forced to buy health insurance? Why did he think that prosecutorial discretion actually allowed him to endorse lawbreakers and reward them with government benefits?
Yeah, for Taft if made sense. Taft had a long and distinguished legal career. Despite his being a “constitutional scholar”, Obama actually did not. Say what you will about any of the current 9, but all of the had significant real life legal experience working cases, many had served as judges at lower levels. Obama’s legal experience is all related to schooling and constitutional theory. I’m not saying that makes him a bad “constitutional scholar”, but have you ever read through the docket? The SCOTUS deals with a lot of arcane and technical issues, and while they obviously have a huge team of the best legal clerks in the world to help them out, it’d be a deviation from the norm from recent history for someone with no regular work getting in the thick of legal cases to be sent to the supreme court.
Not to mention he’d be ethically required to recuse himself from any case touching on any law he signed as President, which is 8 years of law, not to mention any executive actions or etc he took.