The ultimate shrewdness is found not in the balance sheet, but in the qualitative excellence of the business.
- Manlobbi
Halls of Shrewd'm / US Policy
No. of Recommendations: 2
It's not so impossible after all, says famed legal nutjob Alan Deshowitz in a new book:
Trump Told by Alan Dershowitz Constitutionality of Third Term Is Unclear
Trump’s former lawyer presented him with his forthcoming book that concludes the Constitution is ambiguous on the question
President Trump on Tuesday received and discussed a draft copy of a book by lawyer Alan Dershowitz that studies whether Trump could constitutionally serve a third term as commander in chief, according to the veteran legal adviser.
In an interview Wednesday with The Wall Street Journal, Dershowitz said he told Trump the Constitution wasn’t clear on the issue. https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/trump-told-...
No. of Recommendations: 4
Dersh used to be a liberal fave and then he went to the dark side. Money and fame.
No. of Recommendations: 1
I haven't read Dershowitz's book but in fact, the amendment is ambiguous.
For example, Vance could run for President in 2028 with Trump as his V.P. candidate.
The 22nd Amendment doesn't seem to prohibit that.
Then, after Vance's inauguration, he could immediately resign.
That would make Trump the president, and is not expressly prohibited by the language of the 22nd Amendment.
Obviously, none of this is very likely.
But it is permitted by the express language of the 22nd Amendment.
There are probably other similar scenarios outlined in Dershowitz's book.
No. of Recommendations: 6
If 3rd terms are approved, Obama would bury him in a landslide deeper than anybody has ever seen; the greatest mandate in the history of mankind.
No. of Recommendations: 2
If 3rd terms are approved,
The bar to amending the Constitution seems high: 2/3rds vote of both House and Senate, plus ratification by 3/4ths of the states. But bad amendments have been passed before, like prohibition.
Of course, his nibs could simply ignore the law, the way he has ignored others. How many felony convictions?
I am confident the regime would find some way to allow Trump to run, while prohibiting Obama. First option would be reviving the "birther" nonsense.
Steve
No. of Recommendations: 8
If 3rd terms are approved, Obama would bury him in a landslide deeper than anybody has ever seen; the greatest mandate in the history of mankind.
It wouldn't work like that.
Dershowitz' rather contrived theory is based on the idea that the 22nd Amendment provides that no one can be elected to the office of President more than twice, but that the contingent procedure in the 12th Amendment (which governs if no one gets a majority of electoral votes) isn't an election. The House doesn't "elect" the President, in his reading - it "chooses" the President. So his method for Trump to serve a third term without being elected is:
1) He runs in 2028 and wins enough states to have a majority of EV's;
2) Enough Electors abstain from the Electoral College vote that there isn't a majority;
3) The House then chooses him to be President again.
The trick here is that the House "selection" is done by state, not by number of Representatives. Republicans hold the majority of Reps in 30 states, Democrats 18 (there are two that are evenly split). Even if the Democrats win the house in 2028, it is somewhat unlikely that they would flip enough of those state majorities to be able to control the House "selection."
All of this is utterly implausible. The slightly less implausible scenario is that Trump has two stalking horse candidates run in the election (say, a Don Jr./Jared Kushner ticket) and they win, and then Trump gets himself chosen as the Speaker of the House. The two stalking horse simultaneously resign, and Trump ascends to the Presidency for a third term, with no need to argue about whether what the House does in a "no electoral winner" scenario is an election or not.
