Explain Like I'm Five

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ELI5: If Trump claims he won in 2020, wouldn't the 22nd amendment make him ineligible to be president for this upcoming term? (lemmy.world)

submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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The 22nd amendment states "No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once."

Quantifying that, if he won in 2020, that would mean that he's been elected more than twice, making this upcoming term invalid. Couldn't the Democrats just say that he won in 2020, and then tell him he can't be president this time? What would be the repercussions to what Biden has done if that were to happen? What else am I missing? I'm hoping the hive mind here can help me be better informed.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Since the 22nd amendment only explicitly bars you from being elected, it could be argued that you still meet the eligibility requirements laid out in Article II; that is, you're only explicitly barred from being elected, not from holding office.

https://quickapedia.com/answer/what-are-the-constitutional-requirements-for-becoming-a-u-s-vice-president/

We've definitely seen some very concerning Supreme Court rulings recently, so it's unfortunately not as clear-cut as we would hope.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I feel like if we get to that point, we've given up on the constitution. "He can't run for president because he's term limited, but he's still eligible to be president, therefore we can make him vice president so the president can resign and he can be president" is such an abuse of the term "eligible" where you turn "cannot be elected but otherwise good to go" into "eligible to be in the highest elected office in a Democratic government".

If the way it's written isn't clear cut enough then the court would find a way to say anything wasn't clear cut.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

Yes, but some constitutional literalists tend to be quite ... literal.

"The authors of the 22nd amendment clearly knew the difference between holding office and being elected to office, because the text of the amendment distinguishes between the two, yet still chose to explicitly only bar from election."