Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works. Hi, brain Stuff, Lauren Vogel bomb here. If you've been through in American history or government class, some constitutional facts probably left a lasting impression. For example, the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery, and the nineteenth Amendment afforded women the right to vote. But there are twenty seven amendments to the Constitution, and you may not have ever had a reason to ruminate on.
The twenty five. Twenty Amendment has received special attention as news stories regarding President Donald Trump's fitness for office have emerged. The amendment was created during the Cold War following President Dwight D. Eisenhower's three serious illnesses and President John F. Kennedy's nine sixty three assassination. Proposed by Congress and ratified by the States following it provides the procedures for replacing the president or vice president in case of death, removal, resignation,
or incapacitation. Eisenhower originally entered into a letter agreement that stated if his health impeded his ability to run the country, power would be transferred to his vice president, Richard Nixon. This led to the official amendment that clarified the rules around transfer of power in the event of an incapacitated president. After numerous congressional hearings, the final version passed the House and Senate in nineteen sixty five and was ratified on
February ninety seven. There are four sections to the twenty Amendment. Section one stipulates that the vice president will assume the role of president in case of death or resignation. Section two covers the event of a vacancy in the office of the vice president. In such case, the president is responsible for nominating a candidate, who must be confirmed by a majority vote of both houses of Congress. The history of section to ensures that there is both the president
and vice president at all times. Section three states that the president has the discretion to declare his own inability to carry out the job and allows him to temporarily ceed power to the vice president. It makes it clear, however, that the vice president does not assume the office or title of president. Action for to date has never been implemented, but it's the peace of the amendment currently receiving media attention.
The language empowers the vice president and the cabinet to declare a president incapacitated to quote the Amendment, whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive Departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro Tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable
to discharge the powers and duties of his office. The vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as acting president. Section four addresses the problem of a president who is unable or unwilling to acknowledge his or her inability to discharge the powers and duties of the presidency. It would be used most likely if a president falls unexpectedly unconscious, though it also clearly applies when a president is incapacitated because of some other mental
or physical inability. You may recall the invocation of the twenty five Amendment as a result of the Watergate scandal in the nineteen seventies. President Nixon invoked it to replace resigning Vice President Spiro Agnew with General Ford. Then, when Ford replaced Nixon as President, Ford invoked it to appoint
Nelson Rockefeller to succeed him as vice president. However, in order for Section four to be implemented, the vice president and a majority of the cabinet must declare the president incapacitated in a written statement to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President pro tem of the Senate. Once that happens, presidential powers are automatically transferred to the
vice president. In order for Congress to successfully declare President disabled, two thirds in each chamber must conclude that he is unable to handle the office. The disability clause of the twenty five Amendment has been invoked multiple times since ratification. Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Ronald Reagan invoked it during medical procedures, though it was never used when Reagan was shot in However, section four has never been
invoked to remove a president from office. John Hoodak, Deputy director for the Center for Effective Public Management and Senior Fellow for Governance Studies at the Briggings Institute, writes that the process is more difficult than impeachment and is reserved only for truly unique and dire circumstances. So could Section four possibly be applied to President Trump because the vast majority of Trump's cabinet would need to support the president's removal.
Many speculate that the invocation of the amendment during the Trump presidency is not realistic. At Politico, journalist and Karney wrote, the amendment is purposefully set up to require a high burden of proof, and there's no evidence that Vice President Mike Pence or the majority of Trump's cabinet have turned
on him. Unprecedented events, from Michael Wolfe's book detailing turmoil inside the White House to the President's taunts of other world leaders via Twitter, have the potential to lead to unprecedented action. The bottom line, however, is that for now, it's all simply speculation. Former Harvard Law School professor Alan Derschwitz told Politico the twenty Amendment would require, for mental capacity,
a major psychotic break. This is hope over reality. If we don't like someone's politics, we rail against him, we campaign against him. We don't use the psychiatric system against him. That's just dangerous. Today's episode was written by Michelle Konstantinovski and produced by Tristan McNeil. For more on this and lots of other political topics, visit our poem planet how Stuff Works dot com.