# For Dog Catcher maybe? \[Presidents after leaving office-Edited Title\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 12, 2008, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-dog-catcher-maybe-presidents-after-leaving-office-edited-title/444971 "2008-04-12T00:24:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ltfire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ea924/32.png) [@ltfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ltfire)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2008, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-dog-catcher-maybe-presidents-after-leaving-office-edited-title/444971/1 "2008-04-12T00:24:05Z")
Has any US President, after leaving office, taken on another elective office in the United States? I’m remembering a movie where an ex President was running for Mayor of a small town…title escapes me. ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2008, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-dog-catcher-maybe-presidents-after-leaving-office-edited-title/444971/2 "2008-04-12T00:32:07Z")
Andrew Jackson was a Senator afterwards; John Quincy Adams was a Congressman for 18 years. ([Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_the_United_States#After_the_presidency)) ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2008, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-dog-catcher-maybe-presidents-after-leaving-office-edited-title/444971/3 "2008-04-12T01:28:58Z")
Not elective, but William H. Taft was appointed Chief Justice of the United States following his Presidency. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2008, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-dog-catcher-maybe-presidents-after-leaving-office-edited-title/444971/4 "2008-04-12T01:45:35Z")
[QUOTE=garygnu] Andrew Jackson was a Senator afterwards; [/QUOTE] You mean Andrew Johnson. And he wasn’t elected in the standard sense. State legislatures appointed Senators in those days. They might have held an internal election, but Senator was not an elective office until the 17th Amendment was ratified in 1913. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2008, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-dog-catcher-maybe-presidents-after-leaving-office-edited-title/444971/5 "2008-04-12T02:06:37Z")
I have edited the title to better indicate its subject. Please try to use descriptive titles when posting questions. Colibri General Questions Moderator ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2008, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-dog-catcher-maybe-presidents-after-leaving-office-edited-title/444971/6 "2008-04-12T02:20:34Z")
[QUOTE=Exapno Mapcase] You mean Andrew Johnson. And he wasn’t elected in the standard sense. State legislatures appointed Senators in those days. They might have held an internal election, but Senator was not an elective office until the 17th Amendment was ratified in 1913. [/QUOTE] State legislatures were responsible for choosing Senators, but the Constitution never prescribed any particular method. Nebraska and Oregon pioneered laws allowing for the popular election of Senators (with the legislature rubber-stamping the referendum) before the 17th Amendment was ratified. In fact, a considerable reason why the 17th ever got through the Senate was because more and more states started sending popularly-elected Senators there. (Similar amendments had been proposed nearly every year since the end of the Civil War but were always violently opposed by the Senate until states gradually started popular election of Senators.) By the 1910 elections, a majority of states were already electing their Senators directly. (ETA: Actually, some of them were chosen in party primaries rather than the general election.) By 1913 the amendment was ratified by two thirds of the states (pretty fast by Constitutional standards) and in 1914 all Senators were directly elected. ---
**Author:** ![Governor\_Quinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/d26b3c/32.png) [@Governor\_Quinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Governor_Quinn)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2008, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-dog-catcher-maybe-presidents-after-leaving-office-edited-title/444971/7 "2008-04-12T02:29:20Z")
John Tyler served in the Confederate Provisional Congress, and, at death, was a Member-Elect to the Confederate House [(cite)](http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=T000450) ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2008, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-dog-catcher-maybe-presidents-after-leaving-office-edited-title/444971/8 "2008-04-12T02:43:28Z")
[QUOTE=friedo] State legislatures were responsible for choosing Senators, but the Constitution never prescribed any particular method. Nebraska and Oregon pioneered laws allowing for the popular election of Senators (with the legislature rubber-stamping the referendum) before the 17th Amendment was ratified. In fact, a considerable reason why the 17th ever got through the Senate was because more and more states started sending popularly-elected Senators there. (Similar amendments had been proposed nearly every year since the end of the Civil War but were always violently opposed by the Senate until states gradually started popular election of Senators.) By the 1910 elections, a majority of states were already electing their Senators directly. (ETA: Actually, some of them were chosen in party primaries rather than the general election.) By 1913 the amendment was ratified by two thirds of the states (pretty fast by Constitutional standards) and in 1914 all Senators were directly elected. [/QUOTE] Nitpick me, will you? This means war! The Amendment was ratified by three fourths of the states, just as the Constitution requires. Only [nine states](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventeenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution) ever elected their Senators directly before the amendment passed. Another 20 used some variation on a primary process to signal their legislatures who to vote for. That’s where the “majority of states” comes from. Also, so that people don’t get too confused, even Oregon didn’t elect a Senator through a popular referendum until 1906. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2008, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-dog-catcher-maybe-presidents-after-leaving-office-edited-title/444971/9 "2008-04-12T02:47:26Z")
[QUOTE=Exapno Mapcase] Nitpick me, will you? This means war! [/QUOTE] Technically this has not been a war, but a duel. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2008, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-dog-catcher-maybe-presidents-after-leaving-office-edited-title/444971/10 "2008-04-12T02:54:30Z")
The movie was _Welcome to Mooseport_, with Gene Hackman and Ray Romano.