Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution

Section 1: Presidential succession Section 1 clarifies that in the enumerated situations the vice president becomes president, instead of merely assuming the powers and duties of the presidency as acting president. John Feerick, the principal draftsman of the amendment, writes that Congress deliberately left the terms unable and inability undefined "since cases of inability could take various forms not neatly fitting into [a rigid] definition [...] The debates surrounding the Twenty-fifth Amendment indicate that [those terms] are intended to cover all cases in which some condition or circumstance prevents the President from discharging his powers and duties". A survey of scholarship on the amendment found Among potential examples of such unforeseen emergencies, legal scholars have listed kidnapping of the president and "political emergencies" such as impeachment. Traits such as unpopularity, incompetence, impeachable conduct, poor judgment, or laziness might not in themselves constitute inability, but should such traits "rise to a level where they prevented the President from carrying out his or her constitutional duties, they still might constitute an inability, even in the absence of a formal medical diagnosis." In addition, a president who already manifested disabling traits at the time he was elected is not thereby immunized from a declaration of inability. The "principal officers of the executive department[s]" are the 15 Cabinet members enumerated in the United States Code at : • 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 Acting secretaries can participate in issuing the declaration. If the president subsequently issues a declaration claiming to be able, then a four-day period begins during which the vice president remains acting president.{{cite book title=Constitutional cliffhangers: a legal guide for presidents and their enemies| last=Kalt|first=Brian C. Section 4's requirement of a two-thirds vote in both the House and the Senate is stricter than the Constitution's requirement for impeachment and removal of the president for "high crimes and misdemeanors"—a majority of the House followed by two-thirds of the Senate.{{refn| {{cite book == Historical background ==

ArticleII, Section1, Clause6 of the Constitution reads: This provision is ambiguous as to whether, under the enumerated circumstances, the vice president becomes president (that is, the "Office [...] shall devolve on" the vice president) or merely assumes the "powers and duties" of the presidency (that is, the "Powers and Duties [...] shall devolve upon" the vice president). It also fails to define inability or to say how questions about inability are to be resolved. The Twenty-fifth Amendment addresses these deficiencies. The ambiguities in ArticleII, Section1, Clause6 of the Constitution regarding death, resignation, removal, or disability of the president created difficulties several times: , John Tyler (pictured) became the first incumbent vice president to succeed to the presidency. • In 1841, William Henry Harrison died in office. It had previously been suggested that the vice president would become acting president upon the president's death, but Vice President John Tyler asserted that he had succeeded to the presidency, instead of merely assuming its powers and duties; he also declined to acknowledge documents referring to him as "acting president". Although Tyler felt his vice-presidential oath obviated any need for the presidential oath, he was persuaded that being formally sworn in would resolve any doubts. Accordingly, he took the oath and title of "President", without any qualifiers, moved into the White House, and assumed full presidential powers. Tyler was sometimes derided as "His Accidency", but both houses of Congress adopted a resolution confirming that he was president. The Tyler Precedent of succession was thus established, and subsequently Vice Presidents Millard Fillmore (1850), Andrew Johnson (1865), Chester A. Arthur (1881), Theodore Roosevelt (1901), Calvin Coolidge (1923), Harry S. Truman (1945), and Lyndon B. Johnson (1963) were all deemed to have become president on the death of incumbent presidents. Section 1 codified this precedent. • In 1893, Grover Cleveland secretly had cancer surgery, after which he was incapacitated for a time and kept from public view. • After Woodrow Wilson's stroke in 1919, no one officially assumed his powers and duties, in part because his wife, Edith Wilson, and the White House physician, Cary T. Grayson, kept his condition secret. By the time Wilson's condition became public knowledge, only a few months remained in his term and Congressional leaders were disinclined to press the issue. • By 1967, the office of vice president had become vacant 16 times when the vice president died, resigned, or succeeded to the presidency. The vacancy created when Andrew Johnson succeeded to the presidency upon Abraham Lincoln's assassination was one of several that encompassed nearly an entire four-year term. In 1868, Johnson was impeached by the House of Representatives and came one vote short of being removed from office by the Senate in his impeachment trial. Had Johnson been removed, President pro tempore Benjamin Wade would have become acting president in accordance with the Presidential Succession Act of 1792. • After several periods of incapacity due to severe health problems, President Dwight D. Eisenhower attempted to clarify procedures through a signed agreement with Vice President Richard Nixon, drafted by Attorney General Herbert Brownell Jr., but this agreement had no legal authority. Eisenhower suffered a heart attack in September 1955 and intestinal problems requiring emergency surgery in July 1956. Each time, until Eisenhower was able to resume his duties, Nixon presided over Cabinet meetings and, along with Eisenhower aides, kept the executive branch functioning and assured the public the situation was under control. But Nixon refused to use the president's White House office or sit in the president's chair at Cabinet meetings. The 1951 novel The Caine Mutiny and its 1954 film version influenced the amendment's drafters. In 2018, John Feerick called the film a "live depiction" of the type of crisis that could arise "if a president ever faced questions about physical or mental inabilities but disagreed completely with the judgment", a situation the Constitution did not address. Lawmakers drafting the amendment intentionally omitted any wording that the vice president or other officials could exploit to depose the president merely by saying that he was "disabled", as the crew in the novel did to Captain Queeg. == Proposal, enactment, and ratification ==

Keating–Kefauver proposal In 1963, Senator Kenneth Keating of New York proposed a Constitutional amendment that would have enabled Congress to enact legislation providing for how to determine when a president is unable to discharge the powers and duties of the presidency, rather than, as the Twenty-fifth Amendment does, having the Constitution so provide. This proposal was based upon a recommendation of the American Bar Association in 1960. The text of the proposal read: Senators raised concerns that the Congress could either abuse such authority or neglect to enact any such legislation after the adoption of this proposal. Tennessee senator Estes Kefauver, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments, a longtime advocate for addressing the disability question, spearheaded the effort until he died in August 1963. Keating was defeated in the 1964 election, but Senator Roman Hruska of Nebraska took up Keating's cause as a new member of the Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments. particularly since the new president, Lyndon B. Johnson, had once suffered a heart attack and—with the office of vice president to remain vacant until the next term began on January 20, 1965—the next two people in the line of succession were the 71-year-old speaker of the House, John W. McCormack, Senator Birch Bayh succeeded Kefauver as chairman of the Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments and set about advocating a detailed amendment dealing with presidential disability. the amendment's final version passed both houses of Congress and was presented to the states for ratification. Ratification Nebraska was the first state to ratify the amendment, on July 12, 1965. Ratification became complete when Nevada became the 38th state to ratify it, on February 10, 1967. When President Lyndon B. Johnson underwent planned surgery in 1965, he was unable to temporarily transfer power to Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey because the amendment's ratification remained incomplete. On February 23, 1967, at the White House ceremony certifying the ratification, Johnson said: == Invocations ==

Sections 1 and 2: Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Nelson Rockefeller On October 10, 1973, Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned, following a controversy over his personal taxes; two days later, President Richard Nixon nominated Representative Gerald Ford to replace Agnew as vice president pursuant to Section2. Ford was confirmed by the Senate and the House on November 27 and December 6, respectively, and sworn in on December 6. On August 9, 1974, Nixon resigned due to the Watergate scandal and Ford became president under Section1, the only president never to have been elected to either the presidency or the vice presidency. The office of vice president was thus again vacant, and on August 20 Ford nominated former New York governor Nelson Rockefeller. Rockefeller was confirmed by the Senate and the House on December 10 and 19, respectively, and sworn in on December 19. Feerick writes that the Twenty-fifth Amendment helped pave the way for Nixon's resignation during the Watergate scandal. Nixon and Agnew were Republicans, and in the months immediately after Agnew resigned, with the vice presidency empty, Nixon's removal or resignation would have transferred the presidential powers to House Speaker Carl Albert, a Democrat. But once Ford, a Republican, became vice president under Section 2, Nixon's removal became more palatable because it would not change the party holding the presidency, and therefore "the momentum for exposing the truth about Nixon's involvement in Watergate increased". Section 3 On December 22, 1978, President Jimmy Carter considered invoking Section3 in advance of hemorrhoid surgery. Since then, presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump also contemplated invoking Section3 at various times without doing so. 1985: Ronald Reagan – George H. W. Bush as acting president On July 12, 1985, President Reagan underwent a colonoscopy and was diagnosed with bowel cancer. He elected to have the lesion removed immediately, and consulted with White House counsel Fred F. Fielding about whether to invoke Section3, and in particular about whether doing so would set an undesirable precedent. Fielding and White House Chief of Staff Donald Regan recommended that Reagan transfer power, and two letters were drafted: one specifically invoking Section3, the other mentioning only that Reagan was mindful of its provisions. On July 13, Reagan signed the letter mentioning that he was mindful of Section 3 before being placed under general anesthesia for a colectomy. Vice President George H. W. Bush was acting president from 11:28 a.m. until 7:22 p.m., when Reagan transmitted a letter declaring himself able to resume his duties. In the Fordham Law Review, commentator John Feerick asserted that although Reagan disclaimed any use of the Twenty-fifth Amendment in his letter (likely out of "fear of the reaction of the country and the world to a 'President' who admitted to being disabled, and concern ... [over] set[ting] a harmful precedent"), he followed the process set forth in Section3. Furthermore, Feerick noted that "no constitutional provision except the Twenty-Fifth Amendment would have allowed" him to designate the vice president as acting president. Reagan later wrote in a memoir that he had, in fact, invoked the Twenty-fifth Amendment. 2002 and 2007: George W. Bush – Dick Cheney as acting president On June 29, 2002, President George W. Bush explicitly invoked Section3 in temporarily transferring his powers to Vice President Dick Cheney before undergoing a colonoscopy, which began at 7:09 a.m. Bush woke about 40 minutes later, but refrained from resuming his presidential powers until 9:24 a.m. to ensure that no aftereffects remained. According to his staff, Cheney (as acting president) held his regular national security and homeland security meetings with aides at the White House, but made no appearances and took no recorded actions while acting president. 2021: Joe Biden – Kamala Harris as acting president On November 19, 2021, President Joe Biden temporarily transferred his powers and duties to Vice President Kamala Harris before undergoing a colonoscopy, making her acting president from 10:10 a.m. to 11:35 a.m. This is the first time a woman held the powers and duties of the president of the United States. == Considered invocations of Section 4 ==

1981: Reagan assassination attempt was shot on March30, 1981 was shot on March30, 1981 After the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan on March 30, 1981, Vice President George H. W. Bush did not assume the presidential powers and duties as acting president. Reagan had been rushed into surgery with no opportunity to invoke Section3; Bush did not invoke Section4 because he was on a plane at the time of the shooting, and Reagan was out of surgery by the time Bush landed in Washington. In 1995, Birch Bayh, the primary sponsor of the amendment in the Senate, wrote that Section4 should have been invoked. Physician to the President Daniel Ruge, who supervised Reagan's treatment immediately after the shooting, said he had erred by not having Reagan invoke Section3 because Reagan needed general anesthesia and was in an intensive care unit. 2021: Trump and the Capitol attack After the January 6 United States Capitol attack, President Donald Trump was accused of having incited the incident, and by evening some of his Cabinet members were reportedly considering trying to get Vice President Mike Pence to agree to invoke Section4. According to multiple sources, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was reluctant to impeach Trump a second time and, as an alternative disciplinary measure, asked Pence to agree to invoke the 25th Amendment in early 2021. Pence refused in a public letter to Pelosi urging her and Congress to "avoid actions that would further divide and inflame the passions of the moment." Hours later, the House of Representatives voted on a non-binding resolution formally urging Pence to use the 25th Amendment to immediately remove the powers of the presidency from Trump. The resolution passed 223-205, with Adam Kinzinger as the sole Republican voting for it. 2026: Trump and the 2026 Iran war In April 2026, the Twenty-fifth Amendment was the subject of renewed political discussion during the 2026 Iran war after President Trump posted, "A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again". Despite the subsequent announcement of a two-week ceasefire, calls for the amendment's invocation continued. According to media reports, over 50 House Democrats called for invoking the amendment after Trump issued threats and reported military actions related to Iranian targets. Some political figures publicly criticized these reactions, expressing concern about escalation and questioning the president's judgment and decision-making. Coverage of the issue also emphasized that the Twenty-fifth Amendment establishes a constitutional mechanism for transferring or removing presidential power in cases of incapacity, though it has rarely been invoked in practice and remains politically controversial. Analysts noted that any attempt to invoke the amendment would face significant procedural and political obstacles, requiring the support of the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet. == See also ==