Could Bill Clinton run as Vice-President? I heard Comedian/Commentator...

[Up2Late]

...Tim Bedore make a comment to that effect on the radio show "Marketplace" (American Public Media), and said Huh? I wonder if he could?

So, I know this has never happened before, but could it? :shrug:

Hillery/Bill 2008!

<http://marketplace.publicradio.org/shows/2006/01/09/PM200601095.html>


Photo: Don Emmert/AFP © Getty Images

Bedore predicts for 2006...

Listen to this commentary (at link above)

The year's only a week old, but prognosticators are already
figuring out what lies ahead in 2006. At least one market analyst's
betting the Dow will hit 13,000. But comedian/commentator Tim Bedore
thinks most economic predictions tend to be wrong.
He's got a few of his own...

<http://marketplace.publicradio.org/shows/2006/01/09/PM200601095.html>

[edbermac]

1. Why?

It'd be a step down as far as I can see...

[William769]

20. From what we have now?

[napi21]

2. NO. The VP must be capable to assume the Presidency in the

event the President can no longer fulfull his/her duties. BC CANNOT be President again because he already served two terms.

[BluegrassDem]

5. I believe the Constitution says you can't be "ELECTED" to the

presidency more than 2 times. I think he can be VP and assume the presidency in case of a death cause he wouldn't be elected. I think that's how it works. So technically, he can be VP.

[trotsky]

7. No, you're wrong.

The rules are, you are ineligible for the office of VP if you are ineligible for the office of president.

Bill is ineligible to be president again, so he cannot be VP.

[MadisonProgressive]

8. No he's not - he's ineligible to be ELECTED

[trotsky]

9. Read the 12th Amendment.

http://www.archives.gov/national-archives-experience/charters/constitution_amendments_11-27.html

But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.

Bill is constitutionally ineligible to the office of President. End of discussion.

[MadisonProgressive]

16. No. This is the constitutional eligibility requirements

No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty five years, and been fourteen Years a resident within the United States.

“The 12th Amendment would allow a Clinton vice-presidency. Its
language only bars from the vice-presidency those persons who are
"ineligible to the office" of President. Clinton is not ineligible to
the office of president, however. He is only disqualified (by the 22nd
Amendment) from being elected to that office.”

“This is no mere semantic distinction. Article II of the Constitution
carefully defines exactly who is "eligible to the Office of
President": anyone who is a natural born citizen, at least 35 years
old, and has been a U.S. resident for at least 14 years.”

[trotsky]

17. Will you take BILL CLINTON's word for it?

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0406/24/lkl.00.html

So arguably, a former president could become vice president. However, I disagree with that for the following reason. It's an elemental principle of constitutional construction that you should treat every part of the constitution consistent with every other part. The part that gives you the qualifications for president and vice president early on in the constitution says that basically the vice president, the qualifications for vice president are the same as those for president. So I think a reasonable reading is that the 22nd amendment modified the original provision and that a former president can't run for vice president. So I don't think that will happen. I think Senator Kerry, however, will pick a good vice president.

[seeminer21]

26. Yeah, but

Isn't Bill Clinton a known liar?

Kidding!!! :-P

[MadisonProgressive]

29. No, I don't. See post 23.

[William769]

21. edited. sorry wrong post.

[Book Lover]

3. Sigh ... No he can't

He can't sit in any office that is in line of succession because he can't put himself in a place where he could become President again. So, no Cabinet positions and no Speaker of the House position.

[Up2Late]

10. The 22nd Amendment says nothing about the V.P. or that a 2 term...

...President couldn't be V.P. (See below)

<http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.amendmentxxii.html>

<http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.table.html#amendments>

Amendment XXII

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 the 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.

Section 2. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several states within seven years from the date of its submission to the states by the Congress.

[trotsky]

12. Read the 12th Amendment.

But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.

[Up2Late]

19. I'm not a Judge, but I think your wrong. What the 12th refers to is in...

...Artical 2 of the Constitution: "...No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty five years, and been fourteen Years a resident within the United States...."

<http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.articleii.html#section1>

Why else would the Congress feel the need to pass the 22nd Amendment(1951) and even the 20th (1933) <http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.amendmentxx.html> if the 12th Amendment (1804) had clarified the issue? :shrug:

Sounds like a question for the SCOUS, and MAN would this "change the public debate" or what? :think:

[trotsky]

22. See my post #17, please. n/t

[Up2Late]

25. I read it, but all that means is that in 2004, he didn't want the job...

...It doesn't mean he couldn't change his mind in the future, or that it would be unconstitutional.

[trotsky]

27. No, it means that he thinks he is constitutionally ineligible. n/t

[Jemmons]

11. Domestic policy adviser?

[tritsofme]

13. No, the order of succession would just skip him.

Just as if the Speaker of the House happened to be a naturalized citizen.

[Book Lover]

15. Oh, possibly true. Good point. (nm)

[beaconess]

30. He's allowed to be in the line of succession

There is no requirement that one must be eligible to be president in order to hold an office that's in the line of succession. If someone in such office is ineligible to be president, they simply are not included in the line of succession.

Examples: Madeleine Albright and Henry Kissinger.

[Acryliccalico]

4. Wow.........?

:kick: Too Bad.

[MadisonProgressive]

6. Oh YES he CAN!

"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 President more than once."

It applies to being ELECTED only.

[SharonRB]

14. Check this out -- sounds like maybe he could legally run

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=313115

Make sure you keep reading the various entries.
Can you just see Republican heads exploding if he were ever to really do it? Especially if it was a Clinton/Clinton ticket, which I'm sure would never, ever happen.

[Up2Late]

28. If nothing else, this would "Change the Debate" Big time! And Bill...

...could, "...move back to Arkansas"

And what are they going to do, try to Impeach him again?

Then, in the summer of 2008, when he excepts the V.P. spot, do you think the Congress would try to rush through a 28th Amendment? They might try, but there's no way they would be successfully.

Definitely RW heads exploding if he did accept. :nuke:

[karynnj]

18. Another problem - unless he and Hillary declared their residences

in different states, they couldn't run together. This is doable, but at this stage would seem contrived. Hillary needs to declare NY, but Bill could declare their DC home.

(John and Teresa declare different residences their primary ones - MA and PA, but that was because Teresa never changed her residence - so she got to give her husband a swing state vote.

[SharonRB]

24. That's true if he were to try to run with Hillary, which he wouldn't

But doesn't preclude him from running with, say, Clark or Kerry (or Gore).

[karynnj]

33. True - I thought the idea was Hillary/Bill

Which means the usual President, first lady, VP, wife becomes 2 people.

[mcscajun]

23. This has been a "hot topic" among Constitutional scholars....

The question rests on whether the Letter of the law or the spirit of the law is to be followed, and who is doing the interpreting.

It came up during the run-up to the 2000 election, and a few articles were published in the Corporate Media and posted on various legal and scholarly websites. Here's an excerpt from an article run by CNN, but originally posted on the website www.findlaw.com
The author is Michael C. Dorf, vice dean and professor of law at Columbia University, where he teaches civil procedure and constitutional law. He is the co-author, with Laurence H. Tribe, of the book "On Reading the Constitution."

President Clinton is certainly ineligible to be elected to another presidential term, based on the 22nd Amendment. Some might infer from the 12th Amendment that he is therefore also ineligible to be elected to a vice-presidential term.

But these naysayers would be wrong. The Constitution permits Clinton to be elected vice-president, and if necessary to ascend for a third time to the presidency as careful attention to the language of the 12th and 22nd Amendments shows.

The 12th Amendment would allow a Clinton vice-presidency. Its language only bars from the vice-presidency those persons who are "ineligible to the office" of President. Clinton is not ineligible to the office of president, however. He is only disqualified (by the 22nd Amendment) from being elected to that office.

This is no mere semantic distinction. Article II of the Constitution carefully defines exactly who is "eligible to the Office of President": anyone who is a natural born citizen, at least 35 years old, and has been a U.S. resident for at least 14 years.

http://archives.cnn.com/2000/LAW/08/columns/fl.dorf.goreclinton.08.01/

He does go on to say that it could be argued that it would violate the spirit if not the letter of the 22nd Amendment, but that the argument is a weak one.

It's all moot, however, as Clinton won't do it. Another poster upthread quoted him on it.

Nice dream, though. :)

[Hippo_Tron]

31. I think that the Supreme Court would end up having to rule on this one

Obviously it has never been argued in the courts.

[Hippo_Tron]

32. Bill Clinton is the LAST person that anybody wants as their running mate

A charismatic former President would automatically outshine whoever is at the top of the ticket and the VP nominee looking better than the prez nominee is a recipe for disaster.

Had Bill Clinton somehow wound up being Kerry's nominee, he would have probably lost the election by an even bigger margin because people would see all of the qualities that Clinton has that Kerry does not.

[Up2Late]

36. The LAST person, oh I don't agree with that. Actually it's almost the...

...perfect, polar opposite of what we have now, sort of the Democratic version of what I feel is the GOP strategy.

The GOP strategy since about 1980, I think, is to either elect a handsome idiot (Reagan, Bush 2) who is "Mr Popular" or a "Regular guy," that fools the GOP sheep, but the Democrats know full well that he's not running the show, and have a VP (Bush 1, Cheney) that is actually running things, but is too scary to have openly running the country, or the flip side Dan Quayle. The strategy is, their is NO WAY that Democrats would impeach the dummy or Bush 1, which would make the dummy president, and theirs no way anyone would try to knock him off either.

So the Democrat Flip would be, their's no way the ReThugs would let anything happen to Hillery, because that would make Bill President again.

It's the perfect GOP mind blower.

[NativeTexan]

34. There is actually nothing....

...in the Constitution that even addresses it...much less forbids it.
However, if something should happen to Hillary, there might be a Constitutional matter involving the line of succession.

I for one would be willing to take that risk!

[greenbriar]

35. no he can not run for vice...he has to have the same qualifications as pre

which means he is subject to term limits