DURING HIS presidency Donald Trump has done many outrageous things, whether pressuring foreign leaders to undermine a political opponent, keeping his tax records secret or abusing the pardon power. But the 45th president has saved the worst—inciting a mob to storm the US Capitol in an effort to thwart his re-election loss—for his final fortnight in office. Democratic leaders in Congress and some Republicans have said the president’s actions were egregious enough to merit invocation of section 4 of the 25th Amendment to the constitution—a provision that allows a president to be removed, with the vice-president taking the helm, if he is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office”. How does this transfer of power work?
The amendment was ratified in 1967 in response to the assassination of John Kennedy in 1963, which underlined the need for a clear procedure to determine whether the president is able to discharge his duties. Since then the first three sections of the amendment have been used six times. Gerald Ford and Nelson Rockefeller were appointed vice-president in 1973 and 1974; Gerald Ford succeeded Richard Nixon as president in 1974; and Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush briefly transferred power to their vice-presidents (once and twice, respectively) while they were under general anaesthesia for colonoscopies. But section 4—whereby the president may be stripped of his powers by other members of the executive branch—has never been invoked.
The point of this final provision, the longest and most detailed of the four, is to clarify a formerly undefined process: what happens when a president is physically or mentally unfit to fulfil his constitutional responsibilities yet does not or cannot step aside. In such a case, the vice-president and a majority of cabinet members (or a committee that Congress could appoint) may gather to relieve the president of his duties by sending a note to congressional leaders. The transfer of power to the vice-president happens immediately. But the president can grab the reins right back by sending his own letter to Congress attesting to his capacity to resume his work. The vice-president and cabinet have one appeal: within four days of the president’s response, they can contest his fitness to hold office, which puts the vice-president back in charge and triggers a 21-day deadline for Congress to resolve the matter. If two-thirds of the House of Representatives and the Senate agree the president is unfit, the vice-president stays on; if they do not, the president returns to the Oval Office.
The advantage of removing a problematic president via the 25th Amendment is speed: if Mike Pence, the vice-president, and more than half of the executive agency heads in the cabinet have the will, they could relieve Mr Trump of his duties in a flash. Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, and Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, have called on Mr Pence to do this and promise to begin fresh impeachment hearings should he demur. But the convoluted process of making a 25th Amendment invocation stick poses challenges. A combative Mr Trump is not likely to go quietly into the night should his vice-president and cabinet rebel. A flurry of duelling letters to Congress may stir constitutional mayhem less than two weeks before Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20th. And it would be a stretch to secure two-thirds of both houses of Congress to agree to Mr Trump’s removal—even in light of his latest and most appalling transgression—in the waning days of his presidency.
The Link LonkJanuary 08, 2021 at 05:39PM
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How does the 25th Amendment work? - The Economist
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