The Proposed Twenty-Fifth Amendment To the Constitution

After years of unsuccessful attempts to agree on a proposed solution to the lack of procedures for declaring presidential inabilities and filling vice-presidential vacancies, Congress was finally jolted into action by the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. On Tuesday, July 6, 1965, Congress proposed the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, designed to solve these problems once and for all. The purpose of this Article is to relate briefly the history behind the proposed amendment, to describe its legislative development, and to analyze its provisions. The author was involved in the amendment’s drafting and wrote this Article after Congress approved the amendment but before the states ratified it.