What happens if the President-Elect becomes incapacitated and isn’t able to take the oath of office on Inauguration Day? Is it the 20th Amendment, 25th Amendment, or both that would apply? Would the Vice-President-Elect need need to immediately convene a Cabinet meeting after being sworn in to invoke the 25th? Does the President-Elect still become President without being sworn in or would the office technically be vacant? Please try to keep responses apolitical.
Just to be clear, the president-elect in your scenario is not dead, just incapacitated? Is it an obvious objective medical incapacity, like an irreversible coma, or is it one that requires qualified opinions, like mental breakdown to gibbering insanity?
Just in case you are not sure: It’s not the oath of office that makes him the President; it’s the clock.
The never-tested Section 4. of the 25th Amendment says that Congress may appoint some “other body” to determine the President’s ability serve. The way I read that:
Let’s say the President-elect has a massive, disabling stroke on January 10. There’s no Cabinet yet (some of them may not even be confirmed by the Senate) but Congress would quickly appoint a committee of someones (including the VP-elect) to determine within 4 days that the President-elect is unable to serve. Congress would then have 48 hours to agree or disagree. If they agree, the President-elect would still become President on January 20, but the VP-elect would already have the authority to serve as acting President. The President can take the Oath of Office when s/he recovers.
Now if the President-elect were to become disabled on January 19, things could get a little hairy, but Congress can act with surprising dispatch during an emergency. The Vice President will take the oath whether the President is there or not. In fact, there used to be a tradition that the VP took the oath before the President, so if something happened while the President were taking the oath, there’d still be a VP to take over.,
Remember, when Reagan was shot in 1981 there was no formal transition of authority to Bush the Elder during the afternoon and evening Reagan was in surgery under anesthesia, but the country continued to function.
Yes, the President-Elect is still alive in this scenario. When do Cabinet secretary resignations actuality become effective? Is it noon on Inauguration Day or upon confirmation of their succesor? Even it’s the former presumably they could rescind their resignations so incoming VP can incoke section 4.
I think the answer may be that there is no answer; neither the 20th nor the 25th Amendments were written to cover this scenario. Though as said, even without an oath being administered, the incapacitated president-elect would assume office at noon on January 20. After that, the 25th Amendment might be used to give the office to the vice-president.
Just to add more detail. The 20th Amendment deals with what happens if the President-Elect dies before taking office or is not qualified to take office.
The 25th Amendment presupposes that the President and Vice-President are already in office.
I would think it would have to be after the oath of office. Until noon on January 20th, the Secretaries were not nominated by “The President”. The fact that they are acted on early (and probably unconstitutionally) is to avoid any lack of leadership in the agencies and acknowledges that the process and vote would occur anyways as soon as the incoming President takes the oath of office. But you certainly cannot saddle Biden with Pam Bondi while he is still President since he never nominated her.
I think the relevant bit of the 20th Amendment is Section 3 (below), which talks about “if the President-elect shall have failed to qualify.” I don’t think that’s the scenario here.
If, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term of the President, the President-elect shall have died, the Vice President-elect shall become President. If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President-elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President-elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified; and the Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a President-elect nor a Vice President-elect shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice President shall have qualified.
IhopeIhopeIhopeIhope…
Moderating
Keep the political commentary out of FQ, please.
Should such a thing happen on or the day before the inauguration, I reckon there would still be a lot of disarray in terms of what to do.
When Reagan was shot, Alexander Haig’s, “I’m in control here, and not to worry” was mis-contsrued as he (said) he just meant the White House yet there was lots of confusion about what law applied and there was no communication with Bush who was on Air Force 2 (or whatever it is called) en route to DC.
There is some debate about who was calling certain shots on 9-11 (Cheney or Bush) yet FQ isn’t the venue as made clear.
It would be a Constitutional Kerfuffle till Dan Rather sorted it out for us.