We May Need the Twenty-fifth Amendment If Trump Loses

[Nevilledog]

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Laurence Tribe
@tribelaw
If Trump’s “mental state leads him to try to circumvent the election ... to stay in power, Congress” should seek to remove him via the 25th Am as “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office,” but Pence would need to trigger that process

We May Need the Twenty-fifth Amendment If Trump Loses
The questioning of the President’s mental fitness has persisted throughout his Presidency. He has flipped the conversation onto his opponent.
newyorker.com
11:32 AM · Oct 27, 2020

https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/trump-biden-election-twenty-fifth-amendment-mental-fitness

Throughout the past four years, there has been chatter about Donald Trump’s mental health and stability, but little political will to make use of the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the Constitution, which allows Congress to deem a President “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office” and remove him from power. The discussion resurfaced more seriously this month, however, in light of Trump’s hospitalization for covid-19 and the White House’s lack of transparency around his treatment. The news that he was medicated with the steroid dexamethasone, used for seriously ill covid-19 patients, also alarmed many because its known side effects include aggression, agitation, and “grandiose delusions”—behaviors that, judging from the President’s Twitter account, at least, he already seemed to exhibit.

On October 9th, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi unveiled a new bill to establish a Commission on Presidential Capacity to Discharge the Powers and Duties of the Office, which would help carry out the Twenty-fifth Amendment process in the event that the President becomes incapable of doing his job. (Sponsored by the Democratic representative and former constitutional-law professor Jamie Raskin, of Maryland, the House bill is similar to one he introduced in 2017.) Announcing the bill only a week after disclosure of the President’s covid-19 diagnosis and three weeks before the election, Pelosi invoked the Amendment as a “path for preserving stability if a President suffers a crippling physical or mental problem.” She added, “This is not about President Trump. He will face the judgment of the voters, but he shows the need for us to create a process for future Presidents.”

Section four of the Twenty-fifth Amendment provides two distinct avenues for removing a President against his will. In one, the Vice-President joins with a majority of the Cabinet to send Congress a written declaration that the President is unable to serve. In the other, the Vice-President does so along with a majority of “such other body as Congress may by law provide.” The purpose of the House bill is to provide the congressionally appointed body that the Amendment contemplates, by creating a commission of seventeen members to be chosen by both parties, consisting of physicians and former high executive-branch officials. According to the Twenty-fifth Amendment, once Congress receives a declaration of the President’s incapacity, both houses could then decide, by two-thirds votes, to replace him with the Vice-President.

Pelosi’s decision to unveil the bill so close to the election may be, as Republicans have claimed, intended to harm Trump at the polls by drawing more attention to concerns about his health. On October 19th, Senator Kelly Loeffler, a Republican from Georgia, introduced a nonbinding Senate resolution to condemn House Democrats for “politicizing the Twenty-fifth Amendment” and the President’s health “during a global pandemic in order to influence the upcoming November election.”

*snip*

[DFW]

1. Or maybe just Frank Luntz

A skilled spin doctor, able to give Turnip a speech that somehow transforms an electoral defeat into a victory and vindication might be all that is needed for him to slither away, convinced he has scored a moral triumph.

[MineralMan]

2. Hmm...perhaps it would be a good idea to read

that Amendment again. We will not have a 2/3 majority in either house of Congress. It's important to know what such things actually say.

[world wide wally]

3. Pence is already brain dead

[Initech]

4. Someone at least needs to take his phone away.

[moonscape]

5. Pence will be right on it n/t

[crickets]

6. K&R for visibility.