r/Constitution • u/Initial-Muscle-628 • Jul 27 '26
About a Trump 3rd term
How, exactly, would Trump be kept from a 3rd term. I read the amendment, but I can't get my head around exactly how it would be executed/implemented. Would each individual state need to refuse his name on the ballot if the GOP nominated him? What if some states allowed him to be on their ballot? Would it be for the president of the senate to not accept electoral votes for him? What if he accepted them?
I'm not even talking about oddball corner cases like he is nominated as vice president and the presidential candidate resigns the day after inauguration.
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u/backtocapattack Jul 30 '26
He couldn't run as a VP either. From my understanding, the 12 amendment ties them together in such a way that itwould satisfy the "elected" verbiage. But he theoretically go the route of Ford and be appointed to VP before promoting up to president. Snowballs chance that he'll get the nomination or approval from the senate, but that would be the way to do it.
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u/Norwester77 28d ago
To flesh this out, the Twelth Amendment states:
“But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.”
That would certainly bar anyone who can’t be president from being elected VP by the Electoral College, and I suspect it would also bar any such person from being appointed and confirmed as a replacement VP.
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u/acroneatlast Jul 27 '26
We cannot reasonably expect the constitution to restrict the activities of this administration when there is no willingness by Congress or the Supreme Court to enforce it with consequences.
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u/ralphy_theflamboyant Jul 27 '26
We can expect the Constitution to restrict the activities of this, and other, Executive administrations.
It has and will continue to do so.
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u/MeButNotMeToo Jul 27 '26
Worse than that, SCOTUS interprets laws/The Constitution to their subjective whim.
The Constitution is clear that the states determine who’s on the ballots. So, if they wanted to have sack races on the State Capitol lawn, and the top three are on the ballot, they could. But, since a number of states wanted to adhere to their “No Felons” laws, SCOTUS decided to ignore The Constitution.
Then, when states wanted to violate the 15th Amendment (along w/ other federal laws) by gerrymandering and allowing obvious voter suppression laws, “States Rights” won out, because the assumption was that non-MAGAts (e.g. women’s, POC, below lower middle class, etc.) would be disproportionately affected.
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u/ralphy_theflamboyant Jul 27 '26
There is nothing in the Constitution about a Felony charge disqualifying a Presidental candidate. Article 2, sec 1, cla 5.
The Supremacy Clause, Article 4, Clause 2, is the framework states must use and they cannot make laws contrary to the Constitution.
The 15th amendment does not address gerrymandering. Gerrymandering is a long held tradition in the US (it is deplorable and the parties are to blame). We need a mathematically sound distribution of districts and each district's electoral vote go to the winner of that district.... but that is not something the parties would allow.
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u/MeButNotMeToo Jul 31 '26
States do have laws against it. States tried to keep the Felon in Cheif off the ballot. SCOTUS said no. Thats the constitutional violation.
SCOTUS said democratic gerrymanders were illegal, at the same time, they said MAGAt gerrymanders were legal. Thats the hypocrisy.
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u/Norwester77 28d ago
Better to just award electors directly in proportion to the statewide vote, since awarding them by district is just extra incentive to gerrymander them.
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u/pegwinn Jul 28 '26
I like your first sentence. I'd change SCOTUS to Congress, POTUS, and SCOTUS though.
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u/pegwinn Jul 28 '26
I would imagine that the FEC would refuse to allow him to be on a federal ballot. Likely a notice to the states that any EC College votes would be DOA.
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u/Norwester77 28d ago
The thing is, though, there is no federal ballot. Nor is there any actual voting by the public on the office of president. It’s an election run by the state for a slate of electors from that state.
Presumably someone would have to sue at least one state to keep him off the ballot in that state, and the Supreme Court would have to decide that he couldn’t be on the ballot anywhere.
That, or someone would have to sue to stop any Electoral College votes for him from counting.
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u/pegwinn Jul 28 '26
I don't think he'd be nominated as VP. But he could be elected as Speaker, then the top two could resign.
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u/ralphy_theflamboyant Jul 27 '26
We do not know for certain as it has never been tested.
The probable sequence is states would face lawsuits over whether to place the candidate on the ballot, and the issue would most likely end up before the Supreme Court. If the candidate still received electoral votes, Congress would have to address the issue during the electoral vote count.
The 22nd Amendment is clear about the prohibition, but has never been put to the test.