I always like to see some healthy disagreement, but it's a shame when one of the parties is unarmed..... Hal
Here is something interesting that I didn’t know before. A person could actually be president for a maximum of 10 years, not just 8, as we commonly think. The catch is that a person can only be ELECTED to the office of president twice, but suppose that person is Vice President, or Speaker of the House, and ascends to the presidency because the president dies, or is removed from office. Then that person could be acting president for up to two full years. Then they could also run for office and be elected for 2 more full terms after that time passed. An example might be Lyndon Johnson, who took office after President Kennedy was assassinated. He served the rest of Kennedy’s term, and then Johnson was elected to his first term in office. By the end of that term, there was so much conflict in America , mostly due to the Viet Nam War, that he chose not to run for a second term; however it was legal for him to do so had he chosen to do that. What started me thinking about this , was wondering if Obama ran for office as a Representative in 2022, and then became Speaker of the House, could he then become president if Biden dies or is removed from office , and serve the last two years of Biden’s term ? https://www.thoughtco.com/why-presidents-only-serve-two-terms
That is what I am saying. Obama can’t run for president again, but he CAN run for a Representative, and if he were elected and then appointed the Speaker of the House in 2022, and then they removed Biden and Harris, the Speaker assumes the presidency. By the law, Obama could then serve the last two years of the Biden presidency if he was appointed to the position.
I say no because he has served two full terms as president and is no longer eligible to be president or vice president. 12th Amendment: "But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States." According to this, the VP or speaker of the house would need to be eligible to be the President. We have to understand Presidential eligibility; we get that from the 22nd Amendment. 22nd Amendment, 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." By serving 2 full terms as President, Obama is constitutionally ineligible to be President again, and therefore also ineligible to be appointed as Vice President or ascend to either office as the Speaker. If Obama had served the last two years of Bush's term, then he could have totaled 10 years. The two years have to precede the 8. Think of this. Can a 25 year old speaker of the house become president if the Pres and VP are impeached and removed? Again we must look at the requirements for being president which requires the age to be 35, so no this speaker would be overlooked and the line of succession goes until someone meets ALL the requirements. That is my understanding.