President Trump’s bizarre behavior, even by his own erratic standards, has drawn renewed attention in certain quarters to the 25th Amendment, underscored by his remarkable 150 Christmas Day social media rants.
Added to the U. S. Constitution nearly six decades ago, the measure provides for removal of the President from office, either permanently or temporarily, due to inability to effectively discharge the duties of the office and replacement by the Vice President, along with other succession related matters. This is not to be confused with the procedure for the impeachment and removal of the President by Congress for treason, bribery, and other “high crimes and Misdemeanors” in the original version of the Constitution. This newer provision comes into play when the occupant of the White House is deemed unfit for health reasons, including mental afflictions, to hold office.
The measure, which has been invoked only once, has a distinctly Minnesotan, even Minneapolis roots. Here’s a look at that lineage and its lore.
Assassination Aftermath
The amendment came about in the aftermath of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963. The murder elevated Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson to the presidency, leaving the vice presidency vacant, with the next in line to succession being the speaker of the House of Representatives, the 72 year-old John McCormack of JFK’s native Boston. As an aging septuagenarian in frail appearance and health, he was regarded as unfit to become President of the nation, although by 2020 standards he might be considered a spry youth.
The amendment was approved by two-thirds of Congress, as Constitutionally required, in 1965, and ratified by the requisite 3/4ths of the states nearly 59 years ago on February 10, 1967. The Minnesota legislature was one of the last two states, along with Nevada, to concurrently approve on that save day to reach the 38 jurisdiction threshold.
The key provisions of the measure involve filling a vacancy in the Vice Presidency by majority vote of both houses of Congress upon a nomination by the President. It also provides for the Vice President to take over the Presidency if he and a majority of the Cabinet members declare the President “unable to discharge the powers and duties” of the office, although the President can regain the office by declaring he is fit, which can then be challenged by the Vice President and Cabinet majority, setting up a Congressional showdown like an episode of “House of Cards” or other cinematic production.
The 25th Amendment was invoked for the first and only time thus far in 1973 after the resignation of Vice President Spiro Agnew due to his bribery and other schemes. It resulted in selection of Gerald Ford, the Republican minority leader in the House of Representatives, replace him, and he then ascended to the Presidency when Richard Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974 in the face of immanent impeachment due to the Watergate scandal.
The Amendment was not the only time Minnesota played a role in supplementing the Constitution. The text of 13th Amendment banning slavery after the Civil War was drawn from the text of its counterpart in the Minnesota Constitution (“neither slavery nor involuntary servitude…”).
The 18th Amendment that brought about Prohibition from 1919-1933 was implemented through legislation known as the Volstead Act, named after its author, Andrew Volstead, a Republican Congressman from Granite Falls.
In 1964, Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy was the chief proponent of the 24th Amendment banning poll taxes that contributed to the disenfranchisement of most Blacks and many poor Whites, too, in the South.
Minneapolis Men
Two men from Minneapolis played key roles in the development and implementation of the 25th Amendment.
One was Hubert Humphrey, the former resident of Minneapolis and its two-term mayor in the 1940’s before his election. to the Senate in 1948, where he rose to the heights for 16 years. The South Dakota-born politician who helped form the post-World War II DFL was the first person subject to the 25th Amendment while serving as Vice President in 1965-1968 under Lyndon B. Johnson.
Humphrey’s successor in the Senate, Walter Mondale, a later Vice President, was also pivotal. The son of a minister in the tiny town of Ceylon in southern Minnesota, he later relocated to Minneapolis. He was one of five senators who voted against the Amendment before it was approved by that body and then ratified by the states, including Minnesota’s at last joining on the bandwagon.
He later explained his opposition as based on fear that it provided an opportunity for an “ambitious Vice President,” in league with the Cabinet, to stage a de facto coup that would “sully” the succession process, in addition to his concern that the Amendment might not work well if a demented President does not recognize his own frailty and tries to cling to power. Later in life, he referred to it as a “25th Amendment club” hanging over the Presidency.
But Mondale came face-to-face with the 25th Amendment in 1976 when he was on the ticket with Jimmy Carter and defeated the Republican incumbent Ford and veep candidate Bob Dole. Thus, he had the experience of being against the Constitutional protocol that elevated the man he and his running mate ran against.
Amendment Afterthought
The 25th Amendment has not come into play since the Nixon administration and Ford Presidency.
But it was suggested that it be invoked by Vice President Pence as an afterthought for the January 6, 2020 attempted insurrection at the Capitol, with only two weeks left in President Trump’s first term.
A vote in the House on a resolution calling for the invocation of the measure passed by a 223-205 vote, but the Vice President and Cabinet, some of whom resigned after the riots decided not to acquiesce. Instead, the House voted to impeach the defeated President, his second impeachment, but it went down in defeat, like the first one a year earlier, in the Senate.
Remaining on the shelf, there may be some justification to dust the 25th off this year and use it as the “club” that Mondale referred to, particularly if the mid-term elections turn out unfavorably for the President’s party and his behavior turns even more bizarre.
Whether or not that occurs, the legacy of the 25th Amendment remains rooted in the soil of this state and Minneapolis as well.
