I fumbled trying to Google this and just could not scrounge an answer.
What is the rule regarding how long someone can serve as president if they were originally vice president and were required to step in to the presidents office very early in the first term of the president they served under?
For instance: President Crotchgoblin dies suddenly on May 5 of the first year of their administration, meaning they actually only served a little more than three months of their 4 year term.
So Vice President Gummerbung steps in, and serves the 3 years, 9 months that the prez missed.
They can then be elected directly to the presidency following the term they served as a replacement for the president who was directly elected, and died, at least once. Can they be reelected as president after serving such a long term as replacement?
LBJ could have run a second time after being elected directly following his serving out JFK’s term. But he only served a little over a year of JFK’s term
And why am I having such a hard time finding this answer? Because I’m just an idiot today and can’t formulate a decent question? Probably…
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 the President more than once.
So, a day over two years of someone else’s term, and you only get 4 more years.
What you’re looking for is the Twenty-second Amendment (which is also what sets the two-term limit):
Essentially, if someone (i.e., a vice-president) ascends to the presidency with two years or less remaining of the former president’s term, it doesn’t count as “serving a term” for purposes of preventing the new president from running for the presidency twice.
In other words, the VP would have to have served half or less of the previous president’s term. LBJ could have run for re-election in 1968, because he served just over a year of JFK’s term, before then winning election as president in 1964.
Edit: the Twenty-second Amendment went into force in 1951, and thus, had not been there to keep FDR from being elected four times (which was the impetus for creating the two-term limit).
Since the OP’s question has been answered could a VP who became president and would serve two years and one day as president just quit right before that extra day happened and then serve a second term? Their VP would become president for a day.
Probably, although the other party would call foul. But think about how that would work. The original president would have to die on Jan 19, two years after being elected. Then their VP would become Pres, run and win reelection, and then a day before their inauguration, resigns. Kind of a weird situation.
They’d have to be pretty confident in their base of support, in both the primary and general elections, to try it though given the ammunition they’d be handing their opponents in both types of elections (it’s a big “bird in the bush vs one in the hand” situation)
I only meant the two years and one day as an example.
We could imagine it being two months (or whatever but I’d think it’d be more difficult to push the resigning to more than the time between the election and the inauguration…I have no good reason to suppose that though).
You would effectively be asking your party to nominate you for, and the public to elect you to, an office from which you had already chosen to resign; your party/the public might think that was a bit weird. And you’d be doing so, very clearly, to keep open the possibility of standing for the same office a second time four years later.
So, basically, you’re putting the republic through a second mid-term replacement of President with Vice-President in the space of one term, all on account of your own ambitions not for the next term, but for the term after that. It’s not a good look. I think you’d need to have the overweening self-esteem and complete lack of self-awareness of a Donald Trump to even contemplate doing this.
Being pedantic, wouldn’t that be January 5th as the President is elected January 6th by law? The 22nd Amendment is not based on inauguration but election.
No, the pertinent restriction is having served two years or more of someone else’s term.
Definitely don’t want push it to before the election, since that is likely to cause the candidate to lose. While it’s technically legal, lots of people would see this maneuver as shenanigans and would not reward it. Or, what @UDS1 said above.
Oh, indeed, certainly not unthinkable. But my point is that the very fact that a candidate had engaged in this manoeuvre would be politically damaging to that candidate. I’m sceptical that anybody could engage in this manoeuvre successfully.
I think it might be easier to just spend the six years you are President to try and get an amendment passed. If you don’t have the popularity to do that, then you probably don’t have the popularity necessary to pull off a resignation/reelection combo.
To be elected, not inaugurated. If the previous President died on Jan 19th two years previously then on Jan 6th when the President is legally elected they would be 13 days shy of serving two years. So by a literal reading of the amendment they have not served more than two years when elected.
The election that the amendment will apply to happens 4 years after the one where the resignation will take place. By that time, Gummerbung either will or will not have served 2 years of Crotchgoblin’s term 4 years previous.
This is the best kind of nitpicking because you actually changed my thinking. Although I doubt anyone who voted for that amendment intended it that way, I think you are right. With perfect timing, a person can serve as President for more than 10 years.
I’ve got a hypothetical question. First, the Amendment:
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 the President more than once.
Is there a maximum amount of years someone could be President. It may have just been answered above.
In my (ridiculous) hypothetical, let’s assume there is a career VP who serves under numerous Presidents. And, each time, the President dies/quits/etc more than two years into his term and our career VP becomes President for a bit, but never more than two years in any term. Can that career VP rack up a bunch of “President” years that way, seemingly an indefinite amount, and then go run for President and get elected twice more?
The resignation thing probably won’t work for this, though:
A is VP, takes over from B. Is president for 3 years.
Next election, no problem - runs as prez, elected, serves 4 years, 7 total. Then decides - I will run as VP for candidate C, then C resigns, 4 more years of B. But as I understand, nobody who is not eligible to be president can run as VP.
Depends what the constitution means by “shall be elected to office of president”. Not the same as “shall be elected to the office of VP and then take over…”? Is being elected on the presidential ticket as VP same as “elected to the office of president”? (They are elected and the election eventually results in A being president) They have to specifically be elected as president? If Congress picks them because the vote went to the house floor, is that still “be elected”?
The term is from inauguration to replacement inauguration, I would assume? So no need to nitpick, the term is Jan 19 to Jan 19 (or Jan 21st or whatever day). 2 years of that term is counting back 365x2 days from the upcoming inauguration. (Never is leap year an issue…)
Where it might get nit-picky is if A is VP, replaces B less than a month later, then resigns or is replaced by C before 2 years are up, and then faces assorted elections. Does the leap year figure into the math or not. 365+365 or 365+366?
But if that is the state of democracy by then, maybe time for a new constitution. After all, then you have to consider whether the ex-president while serving as the house speaker is eligible to take over the presidency in the right circumstances.