Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2016 May 18

= May 18 =

Would it be legal for Hillary Clinton to name Bill Clinton as her running mate?
I am hoping that we can discuss a technical fine point of US law without getting sidetracked into another into a "which candidate is best" pissing match...

Would it be legal for Hillary Clinton to name Bill Clinton as her running mate? Would it be legal for him to become president should she die or become incapacitated? --Guy Macon (talk) 13:30, 18 May 2016 (UTC)
 * There apparently is a serious question about how the 12th and 22nd amendments interact. See Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution. It's a very technical point that some law scholars have raised, but the general understanding seems to be that in practice, Bill Clinton would be constitutionally barred from taking the office of the Vice President. —/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 13:51, 18 May 2016 (UTC)
 * The Twelfth Amendment is pretty clear that he is ineligible to be elected Vice President since he is ineligible to be elected President per the Twenty-Second Amendment. However, the 22nd only refers to being elected as President. He could, in theory, be appointed or act as President if he were, say, Speaker of the House or Secretary of State and everyone from Hillary to him were incapacitated. Hypothetically. It is kind of a murky issue simply because it has never happened. uhhlive (talk) 14:03, 18 May 2016 (UTC)


 * That raises another question. The line of succession appears to be President, Vice President, Speaker of the House, President pro tempore of the Senate, Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of Defense, Attorney General, Secretary of the Interior, Secretary of Agriculture, Secretary of Commerce, Secretary of Labor, Secretary of Health and Human Services, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Secretary of Transportation, Secretary of Energy, Secretary of Education, Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Secretary of Homeland Security. (United States presidential line of succession.) If (that's a big if...) Bill Clinton cannot serve as Vice President, then it would seem that he also cannot serve as Secretary of Homeland Security or any of the others. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:11, 18 May 2016 (UTC)
 * The Twelfth Amendment only specifically excludes ineligible Vice Presidents if they are ineligible to be President. It makes no mention of any other governmental office. However, no former President has ever gone on to become a Cabinet member or member of Congress after their Presidential term, so the issue has never been contested. uhhlive (talk) 15:27, 18 May 2016 (UTC)
 * See John Quincy Adams. He was elected to the House of Representatives after he was president.  -- Jayron 32 15:31, 18 May 2016 (UTC)
 * And Andrew Johnson was elected to the Senate after his presidency. A. Johnson and J.Q. Adams are the only two presidents to serve in Congress post-presidency. Neutralitytalk 20:03, 18 May 2016 (UTC)


 * That's not true. Only the office of Vice President is specifically named as the holder being required to be qualified also for President (see the already linked 12th amendment.  History has given us several examples of others in the Line of Succession who were ineligible for President; they would just get skipped over.  See Henry Kissinger and Madeleine Albright for two; they were not barred from Secretary of State even though they could not be President. So yes, Bill could be named Secretary of Veterans Affairs (or any other Cabinet post).  He could also run for the House of Representatives and get elected Speaker as well... -- Jayron 32 15:28, 18 May 2016 (UTC)
 * There currently is one Secretary who is not eligible to be President,and the line skips. The Presidential Succession Act is an Act of Congress, not the Constitution, and the act specifically states that only those people eligible to be President under the Constitution are in the Line of Succession, "(e) Subsections (a), (b), and (d) of this section shall apply only to such officers as are eligible to the office of President under the Constitution." Sir Joseph (talk) 15:29, 18 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes he would. The Twelfth Amendment only bars people who are constitutionally ineligible for the presidency from serving as Vice President. The question would be whether Clinton, if sitting in one of the other positions, were to advance to the presidency or vice presidency, could serve in those positions. I suspect the answer would be probably no, but in most situations where the US presidency would fall more than two steps down, the question might be more academic than anything else. —/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 15:31, 18 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Just a note: No one "advances" to the vice presidency.  It's not like a line where everyone moves up when there's a gap.
 * If the vice president dies, resigns, or the office becomes vacant in some other way, what happens is that the president names a replacement "with the advice and consent of the Senate" with the approval of both houses of Congress. That's how Gerald Ford became vice president; Nixon named him when Spiro Agnew resigned.  Then he became president when Nixon resigned.
 * That left a vacancy (Ford couldn't be both president and vice president; I don't think the constitution says that explicitly but it's kind of common sense), so ford named Nelson Rockefeller to take over. When Rockefeller died, they didn't bother replacing him; they just lived without a vice president for the short remainder of Ford's term. --Trovatore (talk) 20:27, 18 May 2016 (UTC) Whoops; I had that last bit wrong.  Rockefeller lived past the end of his term.  Not sure where I got that. --Trovatore (talk) 20:31, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

In addition to the other issues discussed above, which I think show that the answer to the original question is "no," there is also the constitutional requirement that the electors may not cast both their presidential and vice presidential votes for persons from their own state. (Twelfth Amendment: "The Electors shall meet in their respective states and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves....") That means that the 29 electors from New York could not vote both for Hillary Clinton as president and for Bill Clinton (or anyone else residing in New York) as vice president. Newyorkbrad (talk) 17:22, 18 May 2016 (UTC)
 * That was also the reason for Cheney's change of residency to Wyoming in 2000, the 32 electors of Texas were quite important at the end of counting. &mdash; Spaceman  Spiff  17:37, 18 May 2016 (UTC)


 * True, and losing New York would not be good in a tight race. It's implicitly obvious that Bill cannot be the VP, but if they were to try it, there would be a court fight that could really screw up the election process. Plus, politically speaking, it would be a bad idea. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:20, 18 May 2016 (UTC)