The Twenty-Fifth Amendment: Its Complete History and Applications, Third Edition

This new edition of The Twenty-Fifth Amendment: Its Complete History and Applications updates John Feerick's landmark study with the Amendment's uses in the past twenty years and how those uses (along with new legal scholarship) have changed the Amendment and perceptions of presidential disability in general. In its formulation, the Twenty-fifth Amendment was criticized as vague and undemocratic, but it has made possible swift and orderly successions to the highest offices in the U.S. government during some of the most extraordinary events in American history. The extent of its authority has been tested over the years: During the Watergate crisis, it was proposed that the Amendment might afford a means by which a president could transfer presidential power during an impeachment proceeding, and it was also suggested that the Amendment could authorize a vice president and cabinet to suspend a president during a Senate impeachment trial. Where once presidential disability was stigmatized, today a president under general anesthesia cedes presidential authority for the length of the procedure with little controversy. The Twenty-fifth Amendment is evolving rapidly, and this book is an invaluable guide for legal scholars, government decision makers, historians, political scientists, teachers, and students studying the nation's highest offices.

Table of Contents:
Introduction by Joel K. Goldstein Preface to the Third Edition Acknowledgments from the 1992 Edition Foreword to the 1976 Edition Preface to the 1976 Edition I The Problems 1. Presidential Inability 2. Vice-Presidential Vacancy 3. Succession Beyond the Vice Presidency II The Solution 4. Early Steps to Solve the Inability Problem 5. Senate Passage of S. J. Res. 139 6. Congress Acts 7. Ratification 8. An Analysis of Sections 1, 2, 3, and 4 of the Amendment III Implementations of the Solution 9. The Resignation of Spiro T. Agnew 10. The Substitution of Gerald R. Ford 11. The Resignation of Richard M. Nixon and Succession of Gerald R. Ford 12. The Installation of Nelson A. Rockefeller 13. The Uses and Non-Uses of Section 3 IV Continued Interest and Efforts to Change 14. Congressional Action 15. Symposia, Scholarship, and Commissions 16. Representation of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment in Popular Culture V An Evaluation 17. Appraisal 18. Recommendations Appendixes A. Section-by-Section Development of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment B. Constitutional Provisions on Succession C. Statutory Succession Laws D. Presidential and Vice-Presidential Vacancies E. Times During Which the Speaker, the President pro tempore, or Both Were from a Party Different from the President's F. Rule Number 9 of the Republican Party 317 G. Selected Sections of the Charter and Bylaws of the Democratic Party H. Letter from President Lyndon B. Johnson to House Speaker John W. McCormack I. Schedule of Gerald Ford for August 9, 1974 J. Twenty-Fifth Amendment Memo Prepared for President Gerald R. Ford Notes Bibliography Index

About the Author :
John Feerick is a professor of law at Fordham Law School and the occupant of the Sidney C. Norris Chair of Law in Public Service. He teaches and writes in areas of the Constitution, legal ethics, and conflict resolution. His books include the third edition of The Twenty-Fifth Amendment: Its Complete History and Applications, and From Failing Hands: The Story of Presidential Succession, which was helpful to the framers of the Constitution's Twenty-Fifth Amendment.

Review :
"A unique and useful reference." Kirkus Review s, about the previous edition "... the best work on the subject." Librar y Journal, about the previous edition "... Superbly analyzes the practical and constitutional problems." New York Law Journal, about the previous edition