# Vice president who take over during the president’s term… **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 8, 2023, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vice-president-who-take-over-during-the-president-s-term/980897 "2023-03-08T22:44:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 2
**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:** [March 9, 2023, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vice-president-who-take-over-during-the-president-s-term/980897/21 "2023-03-09T23:37:09Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > 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). And the amendment itself exempted incumbent Harry Truman, who had served by succession almost all of FDR’s 4th term and been elected to his own term between it being passed in Congress and ratified by the States. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2023, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vice-president-who-take-over-during-the-president-s-term/980897/22 "2023-03-11T06:22:34Z")
> [@CoolHandCox](#): > > 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? Even if the answer is no, everyone eligible to be president can be elected at least once under the 22nd Amendment (nobody is barred from _ever_ being elected based on time served), so your career VP could still rack up however many years and then be elected _once_ in their own right no matter how you interpret “more than two years of a term.” Gerald Ford, as it happened, was invited to become vice president again, by a man who was elected president and then came pretty close to dying just two months after his inauguration. So Ford could have served a little more than six years as president and then been elected once in 1984, for a total of more than ten years. ---
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2023, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vice-president-who-take-over-during-the-president-s-term/980897/23 "2023-03-11T17:30:37Z")
I recall a discussion earlier that mentioned if the house speaker were ineligible to become president, i.e. foreign born etc. - but the job fell to them - they’d be passed over for next in line. ---
**Author:** ![CoolHandCox](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coolhandcox/32/16233_2.png) [@CoolHandCox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CoolHandCox)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2023, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vice-president-who-take-over-during-the-president-s-term/980897/24 "2023-03-12T19:07:38Z")
Good point. That’s exactly what I was trying to sort out. So no max years anyone can be President, but to get past 10 years it would take events extremely unlikely to occur. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vice-president-who-take-over-during-the-president-s-term/980897.md?page=1)