The next section of the amendment, section four, has never been invoked. President Bush also temporarily transferred power again in 2007 to undergo another colonoscopy. Though the government essentially ground to a halt for two months, left unanswered was exactly who had been in charge for the better part of the summer. Each citizen should draw his or her own conclusion about presidential disability. The legislature agreed that the powers of the presidency are inextricable from the office of the president; under the Constitution, there could not be an acting president. But not a president who already demonstrated those traits when the people, in their wisdom, elected him to office. The president got visibly frustrated that he wondered whether he is expected to take people to Uhuru Park and execute them! (Those looking for an instructive—if dramatized—primer on that matter should watch the fourth-season finale of “The West Wing,” aptly called “Twenty Five.”). At Brownell’s testimony, Rep. Emanuel Celler, the chairman of the subcommittee, said history showed that the vice president and Cabinet would be reluctant to use the power granted under Brownell’s amendment even if they had it. Then, Congress has 21 days to vote on the matter; with support from two-thirds majorities in the House and Senate, the vice president is to continue as acting president.

Some time back, the president brought together heads of all relevant State agencies to diagnose the apparent malaise in the fight against corruption. But the views that the House and Senate committees put forward were not without dissent; rather, both included memos from individual members who disagreed with the structure of the amendment.

Despite a comprehensive digest of written and oral testimony from prominent law professors and government officials on an array of questions related to disability, the subcommittee’s work stalled shortly after considering a draft amendment in 1958. The attorney general rejoined that Marshall’s hesitance to take over from Wilson stemmed from the vice president’s uncertainty about whether Wilson’s disability would end and if he would be able to resume his duties. In January 1956, the House Judiciary Committee convened a special subcommittee to study presidential disability.

The United States had emerged from World War II as one of the world’s two unrivaled military and economic powers.

Of course, there’s another mechanism to remove a president. Why the 25th Amendment Doesn’t Apply to Trump—No Matter What He Tweets, Building the Great Society: Inside Lyndon Johnson's White House.

Illness can impact a president’s ability to conduct the duties of office, but for most of U.S. history, protocol for what happens when a president got sick was minimal. Pour autoriser Verizon Media et nos partenaires à traiter vos données personnelles, sélectionnez 'J'accepte' ou 'Gérer les paramètres' pour obtenir plus d’informations et pour gérer vos choix. But is the 25th Amendment really in play here—and, what’s more, should it be? It is no wonder that the levels and incidences of corruption in Kenya get bolder by the day. Not until the Eisenhower administration did Congress take the first serious steps in the 11-year process that would ultimately produce the solution of which Bannon recently warned President Trump.

The House was prepared to enact a five-part solution that two-thirds of the Senate had already approved, the Bayh-Celler proposal (named for the chairmen of the House and Senate judiciary subcommittees on constitutional amendments). Several respondents said that the term could encompass any definition that Congress saw fit (with one respondent specifically mentioning that he believed mental disability should be a consideration). (Though that concern was ironed out in the ratified amendment, a 1981 Office of Legal Counsel memo suggests that a related controversy—whether acting heads of departments should participate in the disability determination—persisted for decades.).

The final version of the 25th Amendment provides that when the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet determine that the president is unable to perform his duties, the vice president becomes the acting president. During his eight-year presidency, Dwight Eisenhower suffered three serious medical problems that required surgery or sedation or otherwise left him incapacitated for a time: a heart attack, a stroke and an abdominal procedure. But four members firmly agreed that there was no way for Garfield to resume his office if Arthur took over. D.C. pundits are contemplating it.