Hi Scott it's not easy
Section 4: Declaration by vice president and cabinet members of president's inabilityeditSection 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department [
sic]
[note 2][7] or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.
Section 4 addresses the case of a president who is unable to discharge the powers and duties of the presidency but cannot, or does not, execute the voluntary declaration contemplated by Section3.
[3]: 117 It allows the vice president, together with a "majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide",
[note 3] to issue a written declaration that the president is unable to discharge his duties. Immediately upon such a declaration being sent to Congress, the vice president becomes acting president
[note 4] while (as with Section3) the president remains in office, albeit temporarily divested of authority.
[9]John Feerick, the principal draftsman of the amendment,
[3]: xii,xx
[4]: 5
[10] writes that Congress deliberately left the terms
unable and
inability undefined "since cases of inability could take various forms not neatly fitting into [a rigid] definition... The debates surrounding the Twenty-fifth Amendment indicate that [those terms] are intended to cover all cases in which some condition or circumstance prevents the President from discharging his powers and duties..."
[3]: 112 A survey of scholarship on the amendment found
no specific threshold – medical or otherwise – for the "inability" contemplated in Section4. The framers specifically rejected any definition of the term, prioritizing flexibility. Those implementing Section4 should focus on whether – in an objective sense taking all of the circumstances into account – the President is "unable to discharge the powers and duties" of the office. The amendment does not require that any particular type or amount of evidence be submitted to determine that the President is unable to perform his duties. While the framers did imagine that medical evidence would be helpful to the determination of whether the President is unable, neither medical expertise nor diagnosis is required for a determination of inability... To be sure, foremost in [the minds of the framers] was a physical or mental impairment. But the text of Section4 sets forth a flexible standard intentionally designed to apply to a wide variety of unforeseen emergencies.
[4]: 7,20
Among potential examples of such unforeseen emergencies, legal scholars have listed kidnapping of the president and "political emergencies" such as
impeachment. Traits such as unpopularity, incompetence, impeachable conduct, poor judgment, or laziness might not in and of themselves constitute inability, but should such traits "rise to a level where they prevented the President from carrying out his or her constitutional duties, they still might constitute an inability, even in the absence of a formal medical diagnosis." In addition, a president who already manifested disabling traits at the time he or she was elected is not thereby immunized from a declaration of inability.
[4]: 21n63,22n67
The "principal officers of the executive department
" are the fifteen Cabinet members enumerated in the United States Code at 5 U.S.C.§ 101:[11][12]
Acting secretaries can participate in issuing the declaration.
[3]: 117-8
[4]: 13
If the president subsequently issues a declaration claiming to be able, then a four-day period begins during which the vice president remains acting president.
[3]: 118-9
[4]: 38n137 If by the end of this period the vice president and a majority of the "principal officers" have not issued a second declaration of the president's inability, then the president resumes his powers and duties; but if they do issue a second declaration within the four days, then the vice president remains acting president while Congress considers the matter. Then if within 21 days the Senate and the House determine, each by a two-thirds vote, that the president is unable, then the vice president continues as acting president; otherwise the president resumes his powers and duties.
[note 5]Section 4's requirement of a two-thirds vote of the House and a two-thirds vote of the Senate is more strict than the Constitution's requirement for impeachment and removal of the president for "high crimes and misdemeanors" – a
majority of the House followed by two-thirds of the Senate.
[3]: 120n
[14][15][16] In addition, an impeached president retains his authority unless and until the Senate votes to remove him or her at the end of an
impeachment trial; in contrast, should Congress be called upon to decide the question of the president's ability or inability under Section4, presidential authority remains in the hands of the vice president (as acting president) unless and until the question is resolved in the president's favor.
[3]: 118–20
