Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Bill the Veep? Nope.

I was listening to John Gibson on the radio tonight. And they were talking about choices for Vice President. And they had a discussion about whether or not Bill Clinton could be Hillary's Vice President.

They looked all though the Constitution trying to find out if he could.

They must have overlooked the 12th Amendment. That's the one that ends with:

But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.


Now, if Bill Clinton is "ineligible to the office of President" ... and he is ... then he can't be Vice President.

If you're not clear on this, I can't help you. No one can.

5 comments:

  1. Uh, I am going to say that you will have a hard time convincing anyone that the original Black President cannot be vice-president now. I bet he could if it was up to the Ninth Circuit. You just aren't thinking progressively.

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  2. Good point.

    By the way, I looked up "thing progressively" in the dictionary. It said "thinking with one's brain disengaged."

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  3. Basil,

    This is totally off-the-subject, but, where'd ya get the "liveblog" plugin for your blog? I'd like to have one! :)

    E-mail me, please! :) Thanks in advance!

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  4. Quote from Amendment 12:
    But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.

    Quote from Amendment 22:
    1. 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.

    Would a court agree that an elected vice-president could become President upon death or resignation of the President regardless of that VP's ineligibility to be elected President? VP could argue he was not forbidden to be elected VP and fulfill that office's functions. Hey, he never expected the President to die or resign.

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  5. Carol:

    According to the 12th Amendment, someone could not be elected Vice President if that person is ineligible to become President. That's what "no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President" means.

    And this applies to being elevated to Vice President under the 25th Amendment (as was Gerald Ford).

    You can't become Vice President if you can't become President.

    It's all very clear.

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