24 offers a handy little lesson in constitutional law

I’m not sure if any of my readers are watching this season’s 24 on Fox. If you are and you haven’t yet seen this week’s episode, you may want to skip this post to avoid a potential “spoiler.”

Carpetbagger, you ask, isn’t this blog is about government and politics? Why are you bringing up 24? I’m getting to that.

If you saw the episode, you heard one of the characters say that under the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, which generally deals with the line of succession for the presidency, a vice president can take over the presidency with the support of the majority of the cabinet.

Now I know it’s just TV, and 24 isn’t always the most realistic of shows, so I just suspended my skepticism about the legal reference and kept enjoying the program. Imagine my surprise when I looked it up and discovered that the Constitution really does allow for such a contingency!

Just as the character in the show explained, Section 4 of the 25th Amendment says that the Vice President, with a majority of the cabinet, can tell Congress that the “President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office,” thus allowing the Vice President to “immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.”

And if you’re curious, as I was, what would happen next, the Constitution explains that, too. Apparently, after the Vice President and the cabinet stab the President in the back, the President can tell Congress that Brutus and the gang are wrong and that “no inability exists.” If the Vice President and the cabinet tell Congress that the President is still mistaken, then the issue goes to the House and Senate for a vote. If two-thirds of both Houses agree that the President can’t “discharge the powers and duties of his office,” then the Vice President gets to be “Acting President,” presumably until the next election. Otherwise, the President gets to keep his job (and, I’d assume, start reconsidering some “personnel issues” at the White House).

I simply can’t imagine this happening in real life, even under the most outrageous of circumstances. But it was interesting to learn that 24’s reference was correct and that the show actually taught me something about an obscure constitutional provision. Who knew?