Rest assured my friend, that will NEVER happen..we say we have the Constitution backing us always..Thank God that there is also a feature of the Constitution that Prohibits such an atrocity..:deal:
Maybe 2020, (God forbid) but definitely not a third consecutive term..Never has happened, Never will.
The 22nd Amendment states: "No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.".
Note the use of the word "elected". Clearly, no person who has been elected for two terms, nor any person who has served more than two years as successor to another President and has been elected for an additional term, may be
ELECTED to the office of President. It would seem from this wording that the ineligible individual could run for and be elected to the Vice Presidental office as many times as they choose, which would make them first in line of succession should the elected president die or resign. This has been proposed as a way of skirting the 22nd Amendment. However, the 12th Amendment states "But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.". There has never been a court ruling, but there are two thoughts on this. One says that because a 2 term former president is ineligible to be elected under the 22nd Amendment, that he/she is thus ineligible to become VP under the 12th Amendment. Another says that the 12th Amendment refers to "fitness" to become President, i.e. nation of birth, age, etc., but does not disqualify someone who has been "elected" president twice. In my opinion, the 22nd Amendment applies to the 12th Amendment since the 12th deals with procedures to ELECT the President and Vice President, and the 22nd clearly states "No person shall be ELECTED...."
Now, the 22nd and 12th Amendment only apply to the office of President and Vice President. Beyond that, it is only governed by Article 2, section 1. Thus, a person in the line of succession who is not eligible to HOLD the office of president cannot succeed to the office of President. That person would be skipped over to the next eligible person in the line of succession. However, there is nothing to indicate that the 22nd Amendment would make a person ineligible to HOLD the office of President when the office is achieved by succession rather than election. So, in theory a person who has been elected to 2 terms as President and who subsequently becomes elected to the House and holds the position of Speaker of the House COULD still become president again if the President and Vice President both died or were otherwise removed from office. All in all, a VERY unlikely set of circumstances. Even then, if challenged in the SCOTUS it could always be ruled that the former 2 term President is ineligible to HOLD the office due to the 22nd Amendment. Since it has never come up, there is no precedent. If I were ruling on it, I would say the spirit of the relevant amendments is to prevent an individual from serving more than 2 terms, PERIOD, regardless of how they achieve the office. In other words, eligibility to be ELECTED president and eligibility to HOLD the office of President would mean the same thing.
MaxPF
Armchair Shyster
