Talk Elections

Could anything stop a US president from running for a Congressional or Senate seat winning and then stepping down from POTUS? Outside of sheer unpopularity could anyone stop a president from doing this?

Not that I know of, no.  Vice Presidents can do it; so I assume Presidents can as well.

I can only imagine what the sheer uproar would be.

Oh, it would raise hell, but there's nothing to prohibit it.

I've always wondered what would happen if a President appointed himself CJ.

Tempting if a vacancy came up in the final months of one's administration.

Likely the Senate wouldn't approve of the shenanigans (unless, perhaps, Taft tried to pull that off).

Taft was appointed mor then 8 years after his presidency. Anad was approved 60-4 in  the Senate

He's never get confirmed.  :)

Serously, depending on the circumstances, I could understand a President running for Congress.

There are two presidents who served in congress after having been president.  But both waited until after their term was done before doing so.

But would a sitting president meet the state residency requirements to be a congressperson?

 

Yes. They vote in their home states, for instance.

Sorry, meant if Taft (being actually qualified for the position) had tried to pull that off in early 1913 with the outgoing Republican (I believe) Senate.

True.  I feel like an idiot for forgetting that. 

At the end of their term... why the hell not?

In a midterm though... now that would be fun!

Clinton was younger...

Obama will probably do what they all do; make millions on a lecture tour and write a bad book or two.

Hasn't he already done that?

Was going to say that. He has nothing else to do, nowhere to go.

just because he has already written a few books does not mean that he will find no profit in the writing of a post-presidential memoir.  more money is always good.

he could also whore himself out to a bunch of universities and make $1M an appearance.

The what to do with an ex-President issue.  Personally, I would favor amending the Constitution so that former elected Presidents would have a lifetime Senate seat once their Presidential term had ended.  Might have made things interesting if both Clintons had been in the Senate.

But that has its own problems, since the Senate is a fairly small body and a few extra Senators could make a huge difference.

Make them take their state's junior senator's seat. ;D
Although lifetime is a very bad idea, as viz. Ronald Reagan's retirement. Up to age 70 or something would do.

I dare say that Reagan would not have been either the first or last senile Senator we had.  Besides, a mandatory age 70 retirement provision would gut about one-fifth of the Senate.  I'm certain that the GOP wouldn't mind an age 80 retirement provision, as that would currently mean 4 Democrats would have to go  (Byrd, Lautenberg, Inouye, and Akaka).

No, I meant only for the ex-Presidents. Who, unlike the Senators, do not need to face reelection.

Something I thought of for when a Vice President wins: the day after the election, the President should resign, so the Vice President can take office a few months early.

Supposedly in 1916 Wilson gave some thought to appointing Hughes as Secretary of State if Hughes won and then having himself and and VP Marshall resign so as to avoid having a lengthy lame duck period while the Great War was raging in Europe.  (Under the Presidential succession law then in place, the Speaker and the PPT of the Senate were not in succession.)  Might have made an interesting precedent.

I think he would be interested to serve at the Supreme Court. He was after all a constitutional law proffesor.
Wouldn't he become the first one to serve at the highest level of all three branches of government?
(President, U.S. Senator, Supreme Court Justice)

He would be, and he would be an interesting counterpoint to Justice Thomas.  One Justice who could speak eloquently from the bench, and another who doesn't speak.

I'm sure Obama would do the teach/lecture/write thing for several years after his presidency. Then he would likely get involved in humanitarian and development work, like Clinton and Carter.

I suppose Supreme Court Justice would be plausible, but I don't know that he'd be willing to become a junior associate Justice.

Maybe he could go back to Chicago and run for Mayor of Chicago to succeed Daley. He'd basically have it as a lifetime job, although going from leader of the free world to dealing with sewage plants and roads might not be that enticing to him.

Given his global profile, some high-profile leadership of a major international institution might be plausible - but I can't quite think of what - NATO? Don't they usually go for a non-American?

I couldn't imagine him going back to the Senate - he left partly because he was frustrated with its pace.

He's also a fair deal smarter than Justice Thomas.

If Mrs. Clinton had won, then Bush and Cheaney should have resigned before the end of their term as to make Pelosi the firs female President, just to annoy the Democrats.

Since she'd have to give up her seat in the House, I can't see Pelosi accepting the Presidency for just a few weeks.  If that had happened, we'd have ended up with either President Byrd or President Rice.

Well, if they lost, they'd just stay on as President of course. Yeah, it'd be amusing having the guy who just beat the President in the Senate race trying to defeat his economic program.

Come to think of it, would be an interesting list....Presidents who lost Congressional races to a member of Congress who was still in office while they were President. Bush 41 was President while Bentsen was in the Senate. That's the only one I can think of off the top of my head.

If Bush and Cheney had resigned before Jan 3, she could simply have waited to take her oath of office for her new term after January 20.  Or if after January 3, she could have run in the special election.

While Pelosi would likely be able to get her House seat back, I'd be less sanguine about her getting the Speakership back.  She might have done so if Bush and Cheney had left office legitimately, but not under what would be a political stunt.

I repeat this.

He would have to resign by Jan. 3 of before.  It is illegal for anyone to work in two branches of governemnt at the same time.

Yes I know. Thats, for example, why Speaker of the House or Senate pro tem would need to resign in order to become Acting President.

But Clinton can postpone his inuguration as Senator?

Yes.

Yes, there were regulary elected Senators inaugurated later, for example Mark Hatfield, David B. Hill or mentioned Jay Rockefeller