>>11022975 It’s starting to look like the states never should have ratified the 25th Amendment to begin with. At least not the part that deals with a dysfunctional president. Certainly it’s hard to imagine a scheme more nefarious than the one that Speaker Nancy Pelosi is advancing. In one of those crises the Democrats don’t like to let go to waste, it would turn over the task of removing an elected president to a panel of — wait for it — psychiatrists.
Mrs. Pelosi’s plan has nothing to do with President Trump’s case of Covid, contrary to what she suggested in her mincing press conference on Thursday. She suggested the idea was precipitated by the President’s bout of Covid leaving him in an altered state. On Friday, though, she fetched up with the bill a congressman from Maryland, Jamie Raskin, has been nursing. We call it the “Et Tu, Brute! Enablement Act.”
Mr. Rankin’s bill — he’s been nursing it since 2017 — would pick up an unused power granted to Congress in the 25th Amendment. The amendment allows for the temporary removal of the president if the vice president plus a majority of the cabinet declares he’s unable to discharge his duties. The veep and the cabinet majority just have to transmit that declaration to the Speaker and the president pro-tem of the Senate. If two-thirds of each house agrees, the president can be indefinitely sidelined.