Tuesday, May 17, 2016
What kind of first lady will Bill Clinton be if Hillary becomes president?
Former United States Presidents are typically still called "President So-and-
so" even after they leave office. It's a name so snazzy, so prestigious, and so seemingly singular that it never goes away.
However, in the case of Bill and Hillary Clinton, as in the case of a few other US Presidental dynasties, the title of POTUS may not be so singular.
If Hillary wins the White House, this will be the first time the President is a spouse of a former President, but there have been a few times Presidents have shared a last name. And when this happens, typically people refer to the former President by a nickname or by their full name:
If Hillary Clinton is elected president in 2016, the nation won’t just have its first female president. We’ll also have our first male spouse of a president — and the need for a title other than “first lady.”
Late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel asked the Democratic presidential candidate what Bill Clinton would be called in her White House.
“It’s a little bit more complicated with him because people still call former presidents ‘Mr. President,’ so I have to really work on this,” Clinton said on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” on Thursday night.
Vice President Bill Clinton
Constitution states that Vice President has to meet
the eligibility requirements to become President. Bill Clinton is ineligible, having served two terms already. HOWEVER, the eligibility clause was written before term limits were established. When written, that requirement referred only to being a natural born citizen, at least 35 years old, 14 years a resident of the United States, who's never been impeached or participated in a rebellion against the US, all of which Bill Clinton meets.
Of course, it would be easy to argue that the advent of term limits expands that list. However, that question has never been officially ruled on. In the very unlikely event that a two-term president tried to run for the Presidency, it would presumably come up in the courts and be ruled upon. Until then, we can only argue.
My tentative answer is that “eligible” roughly means “elected.” I realize that this is far from perfect evidence — it’s 40 years later than the usage — but the earliest law dictionary that I could find that contained the term, Bouvier’s (1843), defines “eligibility” as “capacity to be elected.” (I take it that, by extension, for appointed offices it would mean “capacity to be appointed.”) If that’s how the term was understood in 1804, then Clinton would not be eligible to the office of president, and thus under the 12th Amendment not eligible to the office of vice president.
Could Bill Clinton Be Vice President If Hillary Clinton Wins
The original Constitution had no requirements for the office of vice president.
So that would mean that a vice president would have to meet the requirements to be president laid out in Article II of the Constitution. Principally, the person would have to be born in the United States, be at least 35 years of age and have been a resident of this country for the preceding 14 years. So far, so good. Maybe a former president, like Bill Clinton, could serve as vice president.
Electing Bill as VP for Hillary would be difficult, because they're from the same state. The Constitution forbids the 538 electors from voting for a President and VP from their own state. Hillary and Bill are both from New York now, so the 29 electors of New York could either vote for Hillary or Bill but not both. Needless to say, that is less than optimal.
Now, if someone else were elected VP and either died or resigned, Hillary could appoint Bill to replace them as VP. But the Congress has to approve. Would they? It looks like we'll still have a Republican Congress.
Why would Hillary waste the position on someone who's out of the game, so to speak? She can win points with her party with that assignment, so wasting it on her husband wouldn't help.
Could Bill Clinton Serve in Hillary's Administration?
Hillary Clinton has yet to win the democratic party nomination, let alone the 2016 Presidential election. But if she accomplishes both feats, as she’s currently favored to do, one of the defining personnel choices of her administration will come with an odd twist. We’re not referring to the Vice Presidential running mate, who will likely be a younger up and comer such as Cory Booker or Julian Castro. Instead we’re talking about Secretary of State. It’s a role which has helped define the last few Presidencies, particularly in this time of international transition. And the two names at the top of the list will likely be Joe Biden and Bill Clinton.
Theoretically, the 42nd president of the United States would be eligible to serve in his wife's cabinet, though some legal scholars might raise concerns if she were to nominate him secretary of state.
Were the former president to be confirmed to secretary of state it would place him in the line of succession to the presidency, and should his wife and her vice president become unable to serve Bill Clinton would become president - an ascension some scholars believe would be in violation of the spirit of the Constitution's 22nd Amendment prohibition on president's serving a third term.
What Will Bill Clinton Do in the White House?
The fact is that Bill Clinton is no longer Bill Clinton, or at least not the Bill
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Good old Bill, with his Irishman’s smile and before-it-was-cool dad bod! He sure likes Big Macs, attention, and *wink wink* the ladies!
But Bill has changed, and worse for him – and for Hillary – so have the times. His mischievous leprechaun smile now seems painted on as he is called out once again to the campaign trail to try to win his wife her own political pot of gold. His chubby frame has melted into a sickly shadow of its former self as the Big Macs gave way to a vegan diet that explains his sallow visage. And the attention once lavished upon him is now falling upon Hillary; he stands to the side, an afterthought, yearning for that spotlight to move back onto him.
Hillary Clinton moved into the White House in 1993, she was not granted the same flexibility. As the chair of the Task Force on National Health Care reform, she was slammed in the press for stepping beyond the reaches of her role, in spite of her clear qualifications to work on policy: the implication was that she was being unladylike. To many Americans, the revelations about her husband’s extramarital sexual proclivities confirmed their belief that Hillary was failing to fulfill the remit of the first lady: to be a pleasant and decorative hostess who represents a “traditional” and anachronistic family: a man in charge, a faithful and helpful woman by his side (even though a number of other presidents and first ladies have also had notable affairs). Indeed, Clinton blamed the affair in part on herself for failing as a wife.
Naming Protocol for Madam President's Spouse
Okay the first, and so far only, female British Prime Minister was Margaret Thatcher between 1979-1990. Her husband was Dennis Thatcher (d2003). I've just been looking on Wikipedia and it doesn't say anything about his role as the first husband of a PM but it does say that he was chairman of the Atlas Preservative Co, vice-chairman of Attwoods plc from 1983 to January 1994 and that he was a director of Quinton Hazell plc from 1968 to 1998, and a consultant to Amec plc and CSX Corp.
I also don't think that there is a term such as the First Lady in the UK. At the moment Sarah Brown is just the Prime Minister's wife and I think that is how the spouse is referred to.
And yes Cherie Blair is a barrister (posh wig and gown and all that) and she did continue working in that position whilst Blair was Pm but she did also do a lot of charity work with Barnardos, Refuge and campaigned for the rights of female prisoners.
here's a link for an article about HER legacy
The president's spouse is a private citizen with no official rank, and thus is properly addressed, in writing and in person, as Mrs. Washington (with neither her nor her husband's given name; she would be the Mrs. Washington, with no danger of being mistaken for Mrs. Chuck Washington).
However, courtesy accords precedence to her, or to another lady serving as the president's hostess. This was referred to, in the era of more complicated and more rigorously observed precedence systems, as her being "the first lady of the land." Hence the title.
And now to the husband. If anything is sillier than "first lady," it is "first husband" (unless this is necessary to distinguish him from a marital successor also on the scene). He would be the host, and addressed simply by his name and "Mr." or another honorific he held, such as general or governor.
Perhaps this is the place to say once again that American protocol dictates that only one person at a time can hold the title of president of the United States. Former presidents should never be so addressed, although they have even taken to calling one another that. Miss Manners would have thought that having reached that position would surely have cured anyone of status anxiety.
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