Resuscitating the 25th Amendment: A Second Opinion Regarding Presidential Disability

The 25th Amendment provides inadequate safeguards to protect the American public from a disabled president who either refuses to certify his own inability or, for reasons of physical or mental compromise, is unable to do so. Though Section 4 specifies who shall then decide, no explicit mandate exists to obtain the medical facts necessary for an informed decision. After all, any pronouncement of disability entails first a judgment concerning the individual's impairment, which is a medical determination to be made by physicians. It is then left to instruments outside the medical profession to determine the impact of that impairment of occupational performance, which equates with disability. A Presidential Impairment Panel staffed in part by physicians skilled in defining impairment, selected before the inception of an incoming administration, and divided equally by party would afford the vice-president an unbiased second opinion apart from the presidential physician should the president's health be called into question. The panel would be advisory only, and could neither initiate proceedings against the chief executive nor depose him. Insofar as the amendment already designates such other body as Congress shall by law provide to participate in this process, no burdensome revision of its wording would be necessary.