So, a president can serve more than two terms? (apparently they can....)

I was researching continuity of government directives today, and trying hard to find anything about continuity of elections after a major attack/disaster. While doing so came across this (See bolded text below):

V. A Special Election.

What if a significant attack occurred early in a term and left a successor of questionable ability in office? Congress should consider holding a special election to fill the remainder of the term of the presidency in certain cases.

Congress has the power to pass legislation to require a special election for the presidency to fill the remainder of an unexpired term. Just as special elections are held for vacant House and Senate seats, a special election for the presidency is possible. It was, in fact, included in the first presidential succession act. Under that law, if the presidency and vice presidency became vacant, the president pro tem of the Senate would have taken over the presidency or the Speaker of the House would have if there were no president pro tem. Under either of those circumstances, if the vacancies did not occur late in a presidential term, the congressional leader would act as president only until a special election could be held. James Madison had been an advocate of such a special election during the constitutional convention.

<snip>

Each of these scenarios is complex in its own way. It is worthwhile at a legislative and party level to try to devise procedures that would be acceptable to the American people if a crisis arose.

1. Even former presidents who had served two terms and were uneligible to be elected president under the twenty second amendment would be eligible to become president again through the line of succession. The Twenty Second amendment only prohibits the election of a two-term president to an additional term, not succession to the presidency. See Scott Gant and Bruce Peabody, “The Twice and Future President: Constitutional Interstices and the Twenty-Second Amendment,” Minnesota Law Review 83, no. 3. February 1999: 565-635.

2. Akhil Reed Amar & Vikram David Amar, “ Is the Presidential Succession Law Constitutional?,” 48 Stanford Law Review 113 (1995); M. Miller Baker testimony before the House Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, February 28, 2002. Steven G. Calabresi, “The Political Question of Presidential Succession,” 48 Stanford L. Rev. 155 (1995); Howard Wasserman, “Structural Principles and Presidential Succession” 90 KY L.J. 345 (2002). On the other side of the argument is John Manning, “Not Proved Some Lingering Questions About Legislative Succession to the Presidency,” 48 Stanford L. Rev 141 (1995)

3. Preserving Our Institutions: The Continuity of Congress: The First Report of the Continuity of Governmetn Commission, American Enterprise Institute and Brookings Institution (June 2003)
4. See my “President Michael Armacost? The Continuity of Government after September 11th”, Brookings Review (forthcoming fall 2003).

http://rules.senate.gov/hearings/2003/091603_fortier.htm

22nd:

Section 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. But this Article shall not apply to any person
holding the office of President when this Article was proposed by
Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office
of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this
Article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting
as President during the remainder of such term.

Just saying :)

Euuuw.

nt

Oh man, just the thought of that...really doesn't surprise me anymore :)

Gad. I'll have nightmares tonight for sure now.


:hurts:




;)

but, not really. Had enough of bush already, even one more year makes me ill :)