25th Amendment trivia: 95 facts about the American constitutional law!

The 25th Amendment is one the laws of the American Constitution and deals with issues of presidential succession and dissability!

1. The 25th Amendment (Amendment XXV) to the United States Constitution deals with issues related to presidential succession and disability
2. It clarifies that the Vice President becomes President if the president dies, resigns, or is removed from office
3. As opposed to Acting a President
4. The 25th Amendment establishes procedures for filling a vacancy in the office of the vice president
5. And also for responding to presidential disabilities
6. The 25th Amendment was submitted to the states on July 6, 1965, by the 89th Congress
7. It was adopted on February 10, 1967
8. Article II, Section 1, Clause 6 of the Constitution reads as follows:
9. In Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office, the Same shall devolve on the Vice President
10. This provision is ambiguous as to whether, in the enumerated circumstances, the vice president becomes the president, or merely assumes the “powers and duties” of the presidency
11. It also fails to define what constitutes inability, or how questions concerning inability are to be resolved
12. The 25th Amendment addresses these deficiencies
13. Section 1 clarifies that in the enumerated situations the vice president becomes president
14. Instead of merely assuming the powers and duties of the presidency
15. Section 2 addresses the Constitution’s original failure to provide a mechanism for filling a vacancy in the office of vice president
16. The vice presidency had become vacant several times due to death, resignation, or succession to the presidency
17. These vacancies had often lasted several years
18. Section 3 allows the president to voluntarily transfer his authority to the vice president
19. This happens by declaring in writing his inability to discharge his duties
20. The vice president then assumes the powers and duties of the presidency as acting president
21. The vice president does not become president
22. The president remains in office, although without authority
23. The president regains his powers and duties when he declares in writing that he is again ready to discharge them
24. Section 4 addresses the case of an incapacitated president who is unable or unwilling to execute the voluntary declaration contemplated in Section 3
25. It is the amendment’s only section that has never been invoked
26. It allows the vice president, together with a “majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide,” to declare the president “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office” in a written declaration
27. The transfer of authority to the vice president is immediate
28. The vice president becomes acting president
29. Not president
30. The president remains in office
31. Albeit divested of all authority
32. A president declared unable to serve may issue a counter- declaration stating that he is indeed able
33. This marks the beginning of a four- day period during which the vice president remains acting president
34. If by the end of this period the vice president and a majority of the “principal officers of the executive departments” have not issued a second declaration of the president’s incapacity, then the president resumes his powers and duties
35. If a second declaration of incapacity is issued within the four- day period, then the vice president remains acting president
36. While Congress considers the matter
37. If within 21 days the Senate and the House determine, each by a two-thirds vote, that the president is incapacitated
38. Then the vice president continues as acting president
39. If either the Senate or the House holds a vote on the question which falls short of the two-thirds requirement, or the 21 days pass without both votes having taken place
40. Then the president resumes his powers and duties
41. Section 4’s requirements for the vice president to remain acting president indefinitely
42. A declaration by the vice president together with a majority of the principal officers or other body
43. Then a two- thirds vote in the House
44. And a two- thirds vote in the Senate
45. This ontrasts with the Constitution’s procedure for removal of the president from office for “high crimes and misdemeanors”
46. A majority of the House (Article I, Section 2, Clause 5) followed by two-thirds of the Senate (Article I, Section 3, Clause 6)
47. On October 12, 1973, following Vice President Spiro Agnew’s resignation two days earlier, President Richard Nixon nominated Representative Gerald Ford of Michigan to succeed Agnew as vice president
48. The Senate voted 92– 3 to confirm Ford on November 27
49. On December 6, the House of Representatives did the same by a vote of 387– 35
50. Ford was sworn in later that day before a joint session of the United States Congress
51. When President Richard Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974, Vice President Gerald Ford succeeded to the presidency
52. Ford is the only person ever to serve as both vice president and president without being elected to either office
53. When Gerald Ford became President, the office of vice president again became vacant
54. On August 20, 1974, after considering Melvin Laird and George H. W. Bush, Ford nominated former New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller to be the new vice president
55. On December 10, Rockefeller was confirmed 90– 7 by the Senate
56. On December 19, he was confirmed 287– 128 by the House
57. He was sworn in to office later that day in the Senate chamber
58. On July 12, 1985, President Ronald Reagan underwent a colonoscopy, during which a precancerous lesion was discovered
59. He elected to have it removed immediately
60. He consulted with White House counsel Fred Fielding about whether to invoke Section 3
61. Fielding and White House Chief of Staff Donald Regan recommended that Reagan transfer power
62. Two letters were drafted
63. One specifically invoking Section 3
64. The other mentioning only that Reagan was mindful of its provisions
65. On July 13, Reagan signed the second letter
66. Vice President George H. W. Bush was Acting President from 11:28 a.m. until 7:22 p.m.
67. Then Reagan transmitted a followup letter declaring himself able to resume his duties
68. On June 29, 2002, President George W. Bush explicitly invoked Section 3 in temporarily transferring his powers to Vice President Dick Cheney
69. This happened before undergoing a colonoscopy
70. It began at 7:09 a.m.
71. Bush awoke about forty minutes later but did not resume his presidential powers until 9:24 a.m.
72. His physician, Richard Tubb, recommended he wait to ensure the sedative had no aftereffects
73. On July 21, 2007, Bush again invoked Section 3 before another colonoscopy
74. Cheney was acting president from 7:16 a.m. to 9:21 a.m.
75. There have been instances when a presidential administration has prepared for the possible invocation of Section 3 or 4 of the 25th Amendment
76. None of these instances resulted in the 25th Amendment’s being invoked or otherwise having presidential authority transferred
77. On December 22, 1978, President Jimmy Carter considered invoking Section 3 in advance of hemorrhoid surgery
78. Since then, Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama also considered invoking Section 3 at various times without doing so
79. Following the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan on March 30, 1981, Vice President George H. W. Bush did not assume the presidential powers and duties as Acting President
80. Reagan had been rushed into surgery with no opportunity to invoke Section 3
81. Bush did not invoke Section 4 because he was on a plane at the time of the shooting
82. Reagan was out of surgery by the time Bush landed in Washington
83. In 1995, Birch Bayh, the primary sponsor of the amendment in the Senate, wrote that Section 4 should have been invoked
84. Upon becoming the White House Chief of Staff in 1987, Howard Baker was advised by staff to prepare for a possible invocation of Section 4
85. This was due to Reagan’s perceived laziness and ineptitude
86. According to Reagan biographer Edmund Morris, Baker’s staff intended to use their first meeting with Reagan to evaluate whether he was “losing his mental grip,”
87. Reagan “came in stimulated by the press of all these new people and performed splendidly”
88. Reagan was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 1994, five years after leaving office
89. After President Donald Trump fired FBI Director James Comey in May 2017, Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe held high- level discussions within the Justice Department about approaching Vice President Michael Pence and the Cabinet about a possible invocation of Section 4
90. It is unclear whether any Cabinet members were in fact approached
91. Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz on the 14 of February 2019 said the Department of Justice’s discussions to employ the 25th Amendment to oust President Trump
92. If true this could amount to an attempted coup
93. Evoking the 25th Amendment, Dershowitz added, would be a fundamental misuse of its original purpose
94. He said it was originally about Woodrow Wilson having a stroke
95. It’s about a president being shot and not being able to perform his office