united-states constitutional-law vice-president
Would Bill Clinton be allowed to serve a 3rd term as President under this scenario?
<p>Let's say hypothetically that the following events happen:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Hillary Clinton becomes the Democratic nominee for President of the United States in 2016.</p></li>
<li><p>Hillary chooses her husband Bill Clinton to be her running mate.</p></li>
<li><p>Hillary wins the 2016 election and becomes President, and Bill Clinton becomes Vice President.</p></li>
<li><p>Sometime during her presidency, Hillary becomes incapacitated and can no longer serve as President.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>What would happen in this scenario?  Would Vice President Bill Clinton become President since he is next in line in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_line_of_succession" rel="nofollow">presidential line of succession</a>?  Or would he be ineligible to become President since the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution" rel="nofollow">22nd Amendment</a> bars a person from serving more than two terms as President?</p>

<p>Or would he not even be eligible to become Vice President?</p>

<p>The 22nd Amendment says that a person may not be <em>elected</em> to the office of the President more than twice. It also says that a person who has held the office / acted as President for more than 2 years may only be <em>elected</em> once. Under the proposes scenario, B. Clinton would succeed H. Clinton and could serve a third term. Since the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vice_President_of_the_United_States#Eligibility" rel="nofollow">12th Amendment</a> eligibility requirement is stated in terms of "being" rather that "becoming", the matter would end up in SCOTUS. See Peabody &amp; Gant <em>The Twice and Future President: Constitutional Interstices and the Twenty-Second Amendment</em> 83 Minn. L. Rev. 565. The matter will reduce to the meaning of "eligible to the office", which in contemporary English is nonsense, but we don't rewrite The Constitution when language changes. </p>
