Can a political party game the U.S. electoral system to keep a President in office virtually indefinitely?
Here’s the hypothetical scenario: A particular political party wants to keep a highly popular and successful president, “John Doe,” in the White House for as long as possible. (In their minds, he’s the greatest President ever. The vast majority of American voters also consider this “John Doe” guy one of the greatest presidents of all time, and want him to be president as long as possible.)
Now, Constitutional term limits mandate that “John Doe” must leave office after serving two presidential terms of four years each, just like every President since FDR. However, “John Doe” doesn’t leave politics. He becomes the vice presidential candidate for the next presidential candidate of his political party. This candidate wins and becomes president, making “John Doe” Vice President.
And now here is how the gaming strategy works: There is no term limit on how many times a Vice President can be re-elected, or serve as a vice president. And when this presidential candidate is elected President, and takes office, he promptly resigns his Presidency (due to an agreed-upon arrangement with “John Doe,”) promptly making “John Doe” president again. For four more years.
This cycle repeats itself indefinitely. In every election, “John Doe” doesn’t run as a presidential candidate; he runs as the VP candidate for a ‘presidential candidate’ who will always promptly resign his ‘presidency’ as soon as he takes office, thus handing over the reins to “John Doe” and make “John Doe” president for yet another 4-year term. (There could be a different ‘presidential candidate’ each time, to avoid the whole ‘you can’t be elected President twice’ legal barrier.)
Under such conditions, couldn’t “John Doe” serve as President for decades?
I’m sure some legal scholar can poke holes in my hypothetical scenario here. And, of course, practical considerations probably wouldn’t let this happen - American voters would tire of this, the media would lambast such electioneering shenanigans, etc. But *in theory, *couldn’t a politician game the U.S. electoral system to let himself be President for decades, as long as the voters re-elect his party back into the White House each and every time?
One of the requirements of being elected Vice President is you have to be eligible to be President. Anyone who’s been elected to the Presidency twice is not eligible.
People will nitpick about the exact wording of the text but the intent is pretty clear.
The legal way to do this would be to repeal the 22nd Amendment. (It’s amazing how many people come up with convoluted plans and overlook the obvious solution.) Then your guy could run openly for President as many times as he wanted.
The idea was that anyone serving two years of term has served a full term and two terms is the max. But the wording is a little ambiguous, it says no one can be elected to more than two terms, or if somehow otherwise becoming president for two or more years shall not be elected to the office more than once. Since John Doe doesn’t have to ever be elected president there seems to be a loophole.
Also, Truman could have served as many terms as he could get because the 22nd amendment didn’t apply to anyone in office when it was ratified.
This was probably examined in some other thread on the topic.
About being “elected” to the Presidency/Vice Presidency - does this also apply to being “appointed” to the Vice Presidency (like Gerald Ford?)
Edit: OK, I suppose ineligible means ineligible either way.
People love loopholes, hypotheticals and what-ifs.
They should have thought ahead, and started John Doe out as the VP candidate from the beginning. The 22nd Amendment doesn’t kick in at all until at least one election as president.
Let’s use Gerald Ford as an example. If things had gone just a little differently for him, he would have been a two-term president elected zero times. His real term was long enough that it took away one of his elections. Then in 1980, Reagan vetted him as a possible running mate, and had that happened and had Hinckley been successful, Ford would have served almost four more years as president. And then, despite having served two terms longer than two years, he’d have been eligible to be elected in 1984, or to be elected VP, etc.
I think there’s a good case that “eligible to the office” might mean “eligible to be elected.” But there’s nothing in the 22nd Amendment saying that someone who succeeds to the presidency twice and serves long terms each time is barred from being elected after that. It has two limits only: two elections or one election, and this version of Gerald Ford was never elected so he must therefore have that one left.
Well, the actual text reads “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 President more than once. But this Article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this Article was proposed by Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this Article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.”
Generally speaking, even if not elected to be PotUS, since the 22nd Amendment was ratified, it’s accepted that the person who ascends to the presidency cannot serve more than a total of 10 years.
From wiki: “Lyndon B. Johnson is the only president so far who could have served more than 8 years under this amendment. He became President in 1963 after John F. Kennedy was assassinated. He served the last 14 months of Kennedy’s term. Because this was less than two years, he was allowed to be elected for two terms. He won the first term in 1964 but ended his try for a second term before the elections in 1968.”
Before anyone mentions it, any cabinet officals who could not become president are skipped in the line of succession. So, Madeline Albright would not have become president if some disaster had killed Clinton, Gore, the Speaker of the House, and the President Pro Tem of the Senate. (She was not a citizen by birth.) They would have just gone to the next person down the list.
[QUOTE=Oakminster]
The last sentence of the 12th Amendment reads:
But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.
Your John Doe, having served two terms, is constitutionally ineligible to be POTUS again, and thus cannot be Vice-POTUS, either.
[/QUOTE]
I think the nitpickers’ point is that the 22nd amendment doesn’t make a 2-time office holder constitutionally ineligible to be POTUS again, only to be elected again.
The other loophole is to become elected (or appointed) to another position in the order of succession, such as Speaker of the House, and have everyone in front of you in succession resign. You’ll become the president, since the 22nd amendment only bars you from being elected again.
The phrase “ineligible to the office of President” does not specify “elected”. No loophole.
On a side note, if Harry Truman were alive today, he’d still be eligible, for as many terms as he could get elected to. There is an exception in the amendment just for him.
I’m unclear if this is a response to me, but if so, it’s missing my point. There are two relevant amendments: the 12th and the 22nd. The 12th refers to holding the office of president, whereas the 22nd refers to being elected to being president.
At the time the 12th amendment was passed, there were only three requirements to hold the office of the presidency: age, residency, and natural-born citizenship. Presumably, if there were additional requirements to holding the office of the presidency added to constitution after the 12th amendment, they would also bind as requirements to holding the office of the vice presidency through the 12th amendment.
So the question is: are there additional requirements to hold the office of the presidency? The literal reading of the 22nd amendment is no. It only applies an additional requirement to being elected. So the 12th amendment does not then apply that requirement to the vice presidency. Ergo, George W. Bush is eligible to be elected to and hold the office of the vice presidency, and ascend to the presidency again should President Santorum die or resign. (How’s that for a nightmare scenario?)
22nd: He is ineligible to be elected President.
12th: He is therefore ineligible to be elected VP either.
Ergo: He cannot re-enter office via election.
There is indeed an added requirement now, from the 22nd, that he not have already been elected twice. Your actually question is if he has other ways to get back into office without being elected, and maybe there are. But at best it’s legally undecided, at best, and an argument that way is steeply uphill. Politically it’s really not possible.
No, that’s not what the 12th says. It says you are ineligible to be VPOTUS if you’re ineligible to be POTUS. It does not say you’re ineligible to be elected VPOTUS if you’re ineligible to be elected POTUS. Bush Jr and (Bill) Clinton are still eligible to be POTUS, they just can’t be elected to the office. Therefore, the 12th applies to no restriction on their ability to be VPOTUS.
Well, not my question, but I agree it’s legally undecided (since hyper-literalism isn’t always the way courts interpret law, and for good reason), and I agree it’s politically not possible.
That’s one colorable interpretation, but there are others that meet the intent test far more readily - like the one that says neither can be elected VP either, or even hold either office.
It’s an odd claim from someone who claims to eschew hyperliteralism.
You’ve misread. My original post in this thread was a reply to Oakminster, who was making an argument based on literal parsing of the Constitution. My post specifically said, “the nitpickers’ point is that…” Should go without saying, but this was not intended to apply an intent test, or state a theory about what might happen if this ever actually showed up before a court in the real world, or what might be politically possible.
The President Pro Tem of the Senate, whoever he or she may be (assuming he or she is otherwise eligible, if not, the Secretary of State, or next most senior eligible cabinet member in the line of succession).
The most relevant thing that everyone misses about the could a two-term President be elected VP and then succeed is that, regardless of the legal answer to the question, it is entirely infeasible politically. Since Washington, the two-term limit for the presidency has been thoroughly enshrined in our political tradition. After FDR broke this tradition, we enshrined the rule in our Constitution, but as important, if someone tried to game the system to break the rule, he or she would suffer significant punishment in the electoral arena and almost certainly be unable to be elected.
As Little Nemo pointed out, if there were the political will to do this, the proponent would be able to amend the 22nd Amendment to allow it.
Nobody is president, as only a vice president can succeed to the actual office. As to who exercises the powers of the presidency during the vacancy, the Presidential Succession Act uses the exact same language as the 12th Amendment (“eligible to the office of President”) that is debated when talking about Bill as VP, so it’s the same question about how you view the 20th Amendment.
There’s also the issue of whether the speaker or president pro tempore are constitutionally eligible at all, as Congress can only empower an “officer of the United States” to act as president.
