Thread by @cmclymer

Minor pet peeve that is basically meaningless in our current political environment, but it still bothers me, so...

Barack Obama is never going to be in the White House again, but lately, someone will tongue-in-cheek propose he should be Biden's running mate and then someone else seriously replies to that remark that he's constitutionally ineligible now and then a whole ass argument pops up.

Because I am procrastinating, I thought I would break down the assumed legality of all this.

We actually don't know 100% how it would hold up legally. At least, we're pretty sure the plain text reading of the Constitution supports Obama being vice president but when has a plain text reading ever stopped the Supreme Court from voting along ideological lines, amirite?! 🙃

So, it goes likes this:

It is true that the 22nd Amendment forbids someone from being *elected* to the office of the presidency for more than two terms. Key word: ELECTED.

The literal text says this: "...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."

So, someone can serve less than two years of another person's term--but not more than that--and be elected to two terms in their own right.

(If they've served more than two years of someone else's term, they can only be elected in their own right just the one time.)

Therefore, someone who serves two years or less of someone else's term can serve as president for up to 10 years across those three terms (their own terms plus the remainder of someone else's).

Take LBJ, for example. He ascended to the presidency when JFK was assassinated with about 14 months left in JFK's term. Thus, despite being elected in his own right in 1964, he would have been eligible to run again in 1968 (which, famously, he did not).

However, this also implies the reverse: that someone elected to two terms in their own right can subsequently serve up to--but not more than--two years of someone else's term.

But wait, you say, what about the 12th Amendment? It states: "But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States."

The 12th Amendment defers to the constitutional threshold, and on this specific standard, the Constitution is rather clear in the 22nd Amendment: it hinges on whether someone has been elected president in their own right and sets a protocol based on that.

Get this: the 22nd Amendment says absolutely nothing about vice presidents. Theoretically, someone could serve as vice president for as many years as they can draw breath and be constitutionally eligible, so long as they're on every subsequent winning presidential ticket.

That's all to say that, not only could Barack Obama be elected vice president on Biden's ticket, he could serve up to two years if Biden were to vacate. Alternatively, he could also serve as vice president for the rest of his life if he keeps getting reelected on winning tickets.

HOWEVER... if Barack Obama were to serve ten years total as president--which includes his own two elections to the office--he would be subsequently ineligible to run for vice president again, given that he would violate the 12th Amendment by way of the 22nd Amendment.

Of course, I hate to further complicate this, but in the most technical sense, if it could be established that if Obama were even one second short of ten years in service as president, he could theoretically be elected vice president again (and again and again).

But there's more: nothing is stopping someone from serving an unlimited number of years as president so long as: 1) they stay alive, 2) keep getting elected as vice president, and 3) finish every subsequent elected president's term within the parameters of the 22nd Amendment.

If Obama had been elected only once, he could just keep getting elected as vice president every four years and serve the remainder of the president's term, even if they vacate the office a second after being sworn in.

If elected twice, Obama could keep serving just shy of two years of every subsequent elected president's term.

Obviously, all of this is wildly impractical, but constitutionally speaking, within the letter of the law.

And as much as I love Obama, the lesson here is pretty damn clear: our Constitution desperately needs revamping on a number of levels. /thread