Vice President Pence is Required to Consider the 25th Amendment

Vice President Pence Is Required to Consider the 25th Amendment

The government oath of office states that he “will support and defend the Constitution”, that he will “bear true faith and allegiance to the same”, and “without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion”.  It is not allowable for him to disregard the 25th or any other Amendment.  We don’t know many actual duties of the VP, other than those specified specifically in the 25th Amendment. 

Here is the start of the lengthy Section 4 of the 25th Amendment. 

It starts with”Whenever the Vice President”.  In these days when the majority of our earthly civilization can be wiped out in 25 minutes, the Vice President cannot pretend that he does not have a split second plan of action ready to go to take over the government.  He most certainly even has his own nuclear football, or bag with the nuclear codes in it to unlock our nuclear weapons.  He also has Air Force 2 instantly available to fly him aloft to safety. 

Unfortunately, hidden under the completely pre-occupying impeachment inquiry, there seem to be no plans to re-negotiate and authorize the replacement to the New Start nuclear agreement with Russia.  This is an agreement with Russia to limit each nation’s fast-launch nuclear weapons to 1,550, with a fixed numbers of launchers that are known.  This will expire a year from now, around election time.  The vague notion that other nations with much smaller nuclear arsenals need to be included, would certainly delay or make impossible agreements.  It is also unnecessary for the present administration, which seems to justify signing separate trade agreements with all 200 world countries.

If VP Pence really has never considered the 25th Amendment, and refuses to consider it at all, he should be impeached for shirking one of his main constitutional duties.  He was elected as part of the Trump-Pence campaign and administration, and also played a key role in bringing along the evangelical vote to a rather unethical President, as has become shockingly clearer over time.

 

About Dennis SILVERMAN

I am a retired Professor of Physics and Astronomy at U C Irvine. For two decades I have been active in learning about energy and the environment, and in reporting on those topics for a decade. For the last four years I have added science policy. Lately, I have been reporting on the Covid-19 pandemic of our times.
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