Authors: John Feerick, Birch Bayh
ISBN-13: 9780823213726, ISBN-10: 0823213722
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Fordham University Press
Date Published: January 1992
Edition: REVISED
This book focuses on the Twenty-Fifth Amendment - its meaning, legislative history, and applications. The Amendment has been criticized for being vague and undemocratic. It has been praised for making possible swift and orderly successions to the presidency and vice presidency upon the occurence of some of the most extraordinary events in American history. Its vice presidential selection feature has been recommended as the best method for selecting all Vice Presidents. The repeal of that feature and the abolition of the vice presidency have also been suggested. Moreover, throughout the Watergate crisis the Amendment was alluded to as affording a means by which a President could transfer Presidential power during an impeachment proceeding, and it was suggested as authorizing a Vice President and Cabinetto suspend, so to speak, a President during the period of impeachment trial before the Senate. Judging by all the attention the Amendment has received and by the number of presidential and vice presidential vacancies and illness which have occurred in our history, one can expect that the Twenty-Fifth Amendment will receive frequent application in the future of our country.
A slightly revised version of the 1976 edition with a new introduction (20 pp.) and some updating of the appendices. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
Introduction to the 1992 Edition | ||
Acknowledgments | ||
Foreword | ||
Preface | ||
I | The Problems | |
1 | Presidential Inability | 3 |
2 | Vice Presidential Vacancy | 27 |
3 | Succession Beyond the Vice Presidency | 35 |
II | The Solution | |
4 | Early Steps to Solve the Inability Problem | 51 |
5 | Senate Passage of S. J. Res. 139 | 59 |
6 | Congress Acts | 83 |
7 | Ratification | 111 |
III | First Implementations of the Solution | |
8 | The Resignation of Spiro T. Agnew | 117 |
9 | The Substitution of Gerald R. Ford | 129 |
10 | The Resignation of Richard M. Nixon and Succession of Gerald R. Ford | 153 |
11 | The Installation of Nelson A. Rockefeller | 163 |
IV | An Evaluation | |
12 | An Analysis of Sections 1, 2, 3, and 4 of the Amendment | 193 |
13 | An Appraisal | 213 |
14 | Recommendations | 233 |
App. A: Section-by-Section Development of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment | 243 | |
App. B: Constitutional Provisions on Succession | 248 | |
App. C: Statutory Succession Laws | 251 | |
App. D: Presidential Vacancies | 254 | |
Vice Presidential Vacancies | 255 | |
App. E: Times During Which the Speaker, the President pro tempore, or Both Were from a Party Different from the President's | 256 | |
App. F: Republican Party Procedure | 258 | |
App. G: Democratic Party Procedure | 259 | |
Bibliography | 261 | |
Index | 269 | |
About the Author | 275 |