# Pelosi is setting up a bipartisan institution regarding the 25th amendment **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [October 9, 2020, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pelosi-is-setting-up-a-bipartisan-institution-regarding-the-25th-amendment/922565 "2020-10-09T14:40:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Rebo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rebo/32/13005_2.png) [@Rebo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rebo)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2020, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pelosi-is-setting-up-a-bipartisan-institution-regarding-the-25th-amendment/922565/1 "2020-10-09T14:40:07Z")
> **[Pelosi pushes new bill to determine whether a President is capable of serving...](https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/08/politics/house-oversight-commission-president-health/index.html)** > > House Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused to say Friday whether extraordinary constitutional measures should be invoked to remove President Donald Trump from office, saying, "that's not for us to decide," even as she throws her weight behind a new bill to... The Commission on Presidential Capacity to Discharge the Powers and Duties of Office Act. Republicans are incensed! “Nancy is staging a coup!” I think this is an awesome development for Congress. Lots of people could die! We need such a plan to know what to do in case of incapacitation. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2020, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pelosi-is-setting-up-a-bipartisan-institution-regarding-the-25th-amendment/922565/2 "2020-10-09T15:32:47Z")
I’m not sure about this. AFAICT the 25th is rather explicit in that **the initiative for declaring incapacity is in the hands of the VP and Cabinet**. The congressional instrument would have a role when and if paragraph 2 of Section 4 of the 25th Amendment is invoked, the case in which a President and his VP start staging the _“I’m not dead yet! I’m getting better!”_ skit. > **[25th Amendment](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxxv)** ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2020, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pelosi-is-setting-up-a-bipartisan-institution-regarding-the-25th-amendment/922565/3 "2020-10-09T15:37:29Z")
Random thing I read this morning mentioned that with congress not in session at the moment. this isn’t very likely to happen, at least not before the election. However, it’s going to get a lot of people talking (more seriously than they are now) about his well being and his ability to run the country. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2020, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pelosi-is-setting-up-a-bipartisan-institution-regarding-the-25th-amendment/922565/4 "2020-10-09T15:41:05Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > AFAICT the 25th is rather explicit in that **the initiative for declaring incapacity is in the hands of the VP and Cabinet**. It’s right there in your own link: > [@](#): > > **The 25th Amendment** > > Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments _ **or of such other body as Congress may by law provide** _, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President. One issue: You could plausibly interpret that as meaning that the Vice President **must** be part of the majority of “the principal officers of the executive departments” (or the “other body as Congress may by law provide”), and that even a majority of the Cabinet/other body could not act as long as the Vice President disagrees. ---
**Author:** ![Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/marvin_the_martian/32/2898_2.png) [@Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marvin_the_Martian)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2020, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pelosi-is-setting-up-a-bipartisan-institution-regarding-the-25th-amendment/922565/5 "2020-10-09T16:00:37Z")
You’d only need such a commission in the vent that the president fills his cabinet with sycophantic toadies who can’t put the good of the country over their personal ambition. What are the odds of that ever happening? ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2020, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pelosi-is-setting-up-a-bipartisan-institution-regarding-the-25th-amendment/922565/6 "2020-10-09T16:10:15Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > You could plausibly interpret that as meaning that the Vice President **must** be part of the majority of “the principal officers of the executive departments” (or the “other body as Congress may by law provide”), and that even a majority of the Cabinet/other body could not act as long as the Vice President disagrees. Hmmm… good point… ( but on that see later ) “…Vice President **and** a majority _of either_… _or of_…” Yes, I’d say that reads to me as that the VP **has** to be on with the decision. In any case such a body would have to be empowered _by law_ i.e. _the POTUS would have to sign it into being_; so the “coup”-sayers are full of it because _today_\* the only thing Congress can create of its own initiative is a body to handle the _“you’re incapacitated-no I’m not-yes you are too!”_ argument. And here once again we have the recurring phenomenon of _“we never bothered to create an actual legal mechanism to enforce Doing The Right Thing because of course people in that rank just will do so out of honor and duty or at least shame”_ which DJT has made masterful use of. Then you get to the point of needing it and if you announce it for the incoming platform then it means you are assuming your incoming Prez will have problems, and if you announce it for the current it is “a coup attempt”. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2020, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pelosi-is-setting-up-a-bipartisan-institution-regarding-the-25th-amendment/922565/7 "2020-10-09T16:14:07Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > “…Vice President **and** a majority _of either_ … _or of_ …” > > Yes, I’d say that reads to me as that the VP **has** to be on with the decision. Yes, the presence of “either” eliminates any ambiguity there. It’s the Vice President plus either one thing or the other. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2020, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pelosi-is-setting-up-a-bipartisan-institution-regarding-the-25th-amendment/922565/8 "2020-10-09T16:19:56Z")
If Pence has to do it with the collaboration of either “the principal officers of the executive departments” or “the other body as Congress may by law provide”, when you consider who those principal officers of the executive departments are and how much their personal welfare depends on Trump being in office it may be that this new Congressional body gives Pence the chance to seize the reins that he never had a chance in hell of taking otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![Wrenching\_Spanners](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecb155/32.png) [@Wrenching\_Spanners](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wrenching_Spanners)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2020, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pelosi-is-setting-up-a-bipartisan-institution-regarding-the-25th-amendment/922565/9 "2020-10-09T16:36:50Z")
So gesture politics that will accomplish nothing legislatively and increase the partisan divide. Someone needs to clue Nancy up that she needs wavering Republicans angry at Trump, not her. Impeachment didn’t work to drive Republican voters away from Trump, so now she’s going for a different form of failure. Maybe she should try passing bills that will help the country instead of time-wasting nonsense like this. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2020, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pelosi-is-setting-up-a-bipartisan-institution-regarding-the-25th-amendment/922565/10 "2020-10-09T16:52:03Z")
> [@Wrenching\_Spanners](#): > > Maybe she should try passing bills that will help the country instead of time-wasting nonsense like this. Bills like the one Trump and Mitch McConnell announced they would block? ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2020, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pelosi-is-setting-up-a-bipartisan-institution-regarding-the-25th-amendment/922565/11 "2020-10-09T16:54:50Z")
> [@Wrenching\_Spanners](#): > > So gesture politics that will accomplish nothing legislatively and increase the partisan divide. Someone needs to clue Nancy up that she needs wavering Republicans angry at Trump, not her. Impeachment didn’t work to drive Republican voters away from Trump, so now she’s going for a different form of failure. Maybe she should try passing bills that will help the country instead of time-wasting nonsense like this. No bills can pass Congress if authored by a Democrat right now. They won’t be brought up for vote. She’s not passing laws. She’s campaigning for the Democrats. She’s showing our standards and that we’re willing to allow our president to have to take a back seat if he’s unwell, even if the Republicans won’t do so for theirs. And she’s appealing both to Democrats and Republicans with this, same as Biden is. Those who support Trump are a lost cause. But the sane ones who don’t support a dictatorship would want an incapacitated president to recover while letting the VP run the office. It is bipartisan: the 25 amendment was bipartisan. The idea that saying we should do what the Constitution says furthering a partisan divide is utterly ridiculous. It’s you admitting that one side doesn’t care about the laws of this country. ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2020, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pelosi-is-setting-up-a-bipartisan-institution-regarding-the-25th-amendment/922565/12 "2020-10-09T17:24:12Z")
The 25th amendment is a reasonable law: a way to enable a group of good, rational politicians to remove a president who has become incapacitated. But it assumes that the Cabinet is made of good, rational and honest politicians. Pelosi’s bill creates a similar body of 16 members, and assumes that it will also be made of good, rational,honest politicians. What’s the difference? And why do we need two such bodies? This is a bad move by Pelosi. By offering it suddenly out of the blue, with no previous discussion, three weeks before the election, this bill is obviously a stunt, designed to grab attention The best way to start discussion of an important issue like this is to introduce it gradually. Hold a few press conferences, talk about it on television talk shows, then call some committee meetings in Congress, then produce the actual bill,with a dozen congressmen actively supporting it, and dozens of others who have made vague statements that they are studying the issue ,etc. This process would take 6 months or a year, and the idea of a new commisson like this would gradually enter the realm of public awareness. But instead, Pelosi sprung it out of nowhere, with no advance warning. It does not make the Democrats look good. It makes them look weak, expecting to lose on election day, so they are flailing around, grabbing desperately for some other way to remove Trump. > [@Czarcasm](#): > > this new Congressional body gives Pence the chance to seize the reins or, after the election, it gives Kamilla the chance to seize the reins. And that makes the optics worse. As if Pelosi is already assuming that Biden is senile and will have to be replaced. This is not the image you want to show the voters 3 weeks before election day. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2020, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pelosi-is-setting-up-a-bipartisan-institution-regarding-the-25th-amendment/922565/13 "2020-10-09T17:33:20Z")
Yeah this is a troll job. If it’s successful, Trump will become even more unhinged and make Pelosi’s point; if it’s not, it could backfire, as she could be viewed as the one playing politics with Trump’s illness. Not sure this was completely necessary on her part, but I’ll sit back and watch like everyone else. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2020, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pelosi-is-setting-up-a-bipartisan-institution-regarding-the-25th-amendment/922565/14 "2020-10-09T17:41:14Z")
> [@Marvin\_the\_Martian](#): > > You’d only need such a commission in the vent that the president fills his cabinet with sycophantic toadies who can’t put the good of the country over their personal ambition. I’m wondering if “acting” cabinet memebers should be specifically exculded from the body. After all, they haven’t been approved by the Senate. > [@Marvin\_the\_Martian](#): > > What are the odds of that ever happening? No chance at all. It’s a certainty. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2020, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pelosi-is-setting-up-a-bipartisan-institution-regarding-the-25th-amendment/922565/15 "2020-10-09T17:42:19Z")
Certainly I agree Pelosi is trolling. But perhaps she’s also thinking about what we’re all worried about - 2.5 months of Trump as an increasingly unstable lame duck. Even if this House will not be in a position to pull the trigger on the 25th, if he becomes more erratic and really dangerous but we have an _Emperor’s New Clothes_ situation where those who **are** in a position to pull the trigger are all afraid of making the first move, the more you can push the issue into the spotlight and get public opinion behind it the better. ---
**Author:** ![Akaj](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/akaj/32/145_2.png) [@Akaj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Akaj)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2020, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pelosi-is-setting-up-a-bipartisan-institution-regarding-the-25th-amendment/922565/16 "2020-10-09T18:40:57Z")
> [@chappachula](#): > > > [@Czarcasm](#): > > > > this new Congressional body gives Pence the chance to seize the reins > > or, after the election, **it gives Kamilla the chance to seize the reins**. > And that makes the optics worse. As if Pelosi is already assuming that Biden is senile and will have to be replaced. This is not the image you want to show the voters 3 weeks before election day. (bolding mine) Where on earth do you get this? Assuming a Biden win, Kamala Harris (note correct spelling) would only become VP on January 20, after Trump and Pence have left office. Neither she (nor Biden) would have anything to do with any efforts to lead the country if Trump is incapacitated before Jan. 20. Nothing Czarcasm (or anyone else in this thread) has said has anything to do with anything happening after Jan. 20. ---
**Author:** ![furlibusea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@furlibusea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furlibusea)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2020, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pelosi-is-setting-up-a-bipartisan-institution-regarding-the-25th-amendment/922565/17 "2020-10-09T18:48:21Z")
I really get the feeling that she is trolling Trump. Remember all those ridiculous things he says and when it is pointed out how out of line they are and the reaction from Trump’s base is “Ha ha ha. those libruls got mad.” Pelosi knows as well as anyone that anything she does will go no where, but it sure makes him foam at the mouth. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2020, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pelosi-is-setting-up-a-bipartisan-institution-regarding-the-25th-amendment/922565/18 "2020-10-09T18:51:16Z")
> [@chappachula](#): > > or, after the election, it gives Kamilla the chance to seize the reins Kamilla, Duchess of Kornwall, the wife of Tsar Charles? Is she planning an invasion? ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2020, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pelosi-is-setting-up-a-bipartisan-institution-regarding-the-25th-amendment/922565/19 "2020-10-09T20:03:37Z")
If Pelosi is just trolling (or mostly trolling) then I’m not happy about it. We’d be going nuts if (or when) a Republican was doing this to Biden. That said, I can imagine that she really is concerned. She’d like to get confirmation from Republicans that they would step in if Trump was mentally incapacitated. The problem is separating that from the trolling. ---
**Author:** ![Chad\_Sudan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chad_sudan/32/4509_2.png) [@Chad\_Sudan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chad_Sudan)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2020, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pelosi-is-setting-up-a-bipartisan-institution-regarding-the-25th-amendment/922565/20 "2020-10-09T20:14:03Z")
This is about more than erratic tweets. The president has an illness that could put him on a ventilator or in a coma a couple weeks from now. The White House is in deep denial about it, but Congress doesn’t have to be. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pelosi-is-setting-up-a-bipartisan-institution-regarding-the-25th-amendment/922565.md?page=2)