Nancy Pelosi and the House are pursuing a legal angle for invoking the 25th Amendment without Mike Pence
The generally agreed-upon legal interpretation is that only the Vice President and the cabinet can invoke the 25th Amendment forcibly against the President. But here’s the thing. The 25th Amendment doesn’t actually quite say that. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has picked up on this, and she’s moving forward with it tonight.
Here’s what Section 4 of the 25th Amendment actually says: “Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.”
The key passage here is “such other body as Congress.” A generously broad interoperation of this passage suggests that “Congress” could create its own alternate slate of “principal officers” outside of the cabinet, and allow that slate to vote on invoking the 25th Amendment. Congressman Jamie Raskin has drafted a plan to do just that, and Pelosi has voiced her support for it.
Here’s the thing. If the House decided to create its own slate and unilaterally invoke the 25th Amendment, it would certainly be immediately challenged in court. But that could take several days to play out, and even though the House would likely lose in court, the move could briefly keep Trump out of power just long enough to get to the end of his term.
Is this a long shot? Yes. Will the House actually go through with it? Who knows. But it’s yet another avenue for placing additional public pressure on Mike Pence to simply invoke the 25th Amendment himself, and it’s good to see the House pursuing it as part of is broader overall strategy to oust Trump.
