Confirming a new vice-president Whenever the Office of President of the United States becomes vacant, whether by resignation, impeachment, ill health, whatever, the reason is immaterial. Naturally, the Vice President takes over the presidency. No problem: sadly, it's happened before. One of the new President's necessary acts is to select a new Vice-President, to fill out the remainder of the term before the next election. The selection must be approved by both the House and the Senate. However, the Senate is evenly split at 50 - 50. Now there have been tie votes in the Senate, and they are resolved by the President of the Senate casting a deciding vote if he/she so chooses. But, Constitutionally, the Vice-President is the President of the Senate! And there isn't one yet! The tie vote is to confirm the selection of a Vice-President! So, in the absence of a Vice-President, how is a tie in a Senate vote decided?
The Twenty-fifth Amendment states: Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress. Thus, in the absence of a majority the candidate would be denied the office.
Mr. Comey answered this in his testimony. LANKFORD: Okay. Fair enough. If the president wanted to stop an investigation, how would he do that? Knowing it is an ongoing criminal investigation or counterintelligence investigation, would that be a matter of going to you, you perceive, and say, you make it stop because he doesn't have the authority to stop it? How would the president make an ongoing investigation stop? COMEY: I'm not a legal scholar, but as a legal matter, the president is the head of the executive branch and could direct, in theory, we have important norms against this, but could anyone be investigative or not. I think he has the legal authority. All of us ultimately report in the executive branch to the president. LANKFORD: Would that be to you, or the attorney general or who? COMEY: I suppose he could if he wanted to issue a direct order could do it anyway. Through the attorney general or issue it directly to me. This issue also came up in United States v Texas. The obligation to refrain from interference with the FBI is a norm, not a legal requirement. And, like many executive powers, an act that is sometimes legally permitted can become illegal given an improper motive. It is also possible for Congress to find legal acts to be untenably corrupt.
Your question: "How blatant the circumvention of the Constitution has to be for SCOTUS to act?" indicates some confusion about the big picture of how contesting the constitutionality of a law works. SCOTUS doesn't proactively do anything. The Supreme Court cannot simply review a law that has been enacted and say it is unconstitutional of its own accord, or at the request of someone involved in the political process (some countries allow this, the U.S. does not). The U.S. Supreme Court is not equivalent to the institution of a "Constitutional Court" found in many countries. It is just the last court of appeal for all U.S. Courts. It often ends up resolving constitutional questions, but only after other courts have already done so in cases where there are real tangible immediate consequences to the decision. A lawsuit must be brought by someone who is actually injured for the courts to act In your example, nothing would happen unless a home owner could show that soldiers had actually commandeered his home without consent or compensation, or places him in imminent fear of having this done. If someone can't show that, then no lawsuit to determine the constitutionality of the law is allowed even if it is blatantly unconstitutional and the question of the law's validity will remain unresolved by the courts. This limitation is called "standing" and requires that there be an actual case and controversy with a suit brought by someone who has suffered a legal injury before anyone can bring any lawsuit. In point of fact, there are all sorts of laws in the United States that are clearly unconstitutional, but which are never brought before the courts to declare unconstitutional, because the government agrees that those laws are unconstitutional and makes a point of not enforcing those laws. All cases (with exceptions not applicable here) start in trial courts Suppose soldiers do commandeer Bob's house at the express direction of the President without Bob's consent or following any procedure that amounts to due process. What does Bob do? Bob brings a lawsuit against the soldiers and their commanders up through the President and the United States in the U.S. District Court for the state where the house is located or where the defendants live. Suits against the U.S. and its employees must be brought in federal courts rather than state courts. SCOTUS can hear cases as a trial court, but only in cases involving a state or foreign country or a diplomat as a party (and in practice, even those cases are referred to a temporary judge called a special master for evaluation and SCOTUS only considers the case after receiving a recommendation from the special master). None of those circumstances apply in this case. A federal trial judge hears the case and decides if the law is constitutional or not, and if it is held to be unconstitutional may decide that Bob is entitled to a remedy. There will also be other separate issues to decide in the case. For example: Was the lawsuit brought within the statute of limitations? Are the soldiers immune to suit for damages against them personally, which depends upon how clear it was to the soldier that he was acting unconstitutionally? Were the soldiers violating orders or following orders? Did Bob meet other procedural requirements during the course of a lawsuit (like making the proper disclosures of information and showing up to hearing he is required to attend, and presenting evidence in accordance with the rules of evidence)? If the trial judge finds that the law is unconstitutional, the trial judge can issue an order saying so and that is the law of land that binds the parties (including the U.S. in any other case presenting the same issue under a principle called collateral estoppel) unless someone appeals the case. Every state and federal judge in the United States from small claims court judge to a U.S. Supreme Court justice has the power to declare laws unconstitutional if it comes up in a case properly heard in that judge's court, not just SCOTUS. SCOTUS (with exceptions that don't apply) doesn't hear direct appeals A handful of cases are directly appealed from a trial court to SCOTUS (mostly election law cases). But the vast majority of cases, including this one, would go to an intermediate court of appeals first. If someone does appeal the case, it goes to the U.S. Court of Appeals for whatever circuit the state of the District Court is located in. It reviews the judge's ruling in light of the evidence presented and can either reverse the trial judge's decision or affirm it. Only after the U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled (sometimes with one more layer of decision making within the U.S. Court of Appeals), any party can appeal the case by a writ of certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court. SCOTUS often declines to reconsider Court of Appeals Rulings The U.S. Supreme Court doesn't have to take the case and 98% of the time that cases are appealed to it, it doesn't take the case. If it doesn't take the case, then the U.S. Court of Appeals ruling is the law and that ruling is binding on any other federal court in its jurisdiction in future case. The U.S. Supreme Court will usually only take the case if it feels the decision was wrong, or there are conflicting precedents that have to be resolved from different courts. Whichever judge decides constitutionality (a power not reserved to SCOTUS) that judge will try to follow the law to make the right decision whether the violation of the constitution is blatant or subtle. If the U.S. Supreme Court does decide to take the case, it can affirm that U.S. Court of Appeals ruling (which is then binding on all U.S. Courts as precedent), or it can reverse the U.S. Court of Appeals. In each case, at the trial court level, at the U.S. Court of Appeals level, and at the U.S. Supreme Court level, the only question is whether the law conflicts with the constitution as interpreted by the case law already decided over time. Only a handful of cases in the history of the United States have ever squarely addressed whether a law violates the 3rd Amendment so there isn't a lot of directly applicable precedent, but the judges would also consider how similar provisions of the constitution, like the 5th Amendment, have been treated and would consider law review articles and historical records about the intent of the Third Amendment as well. Judges have quite a bit of freedom in interpreting the law, but will try to rule in the way that most fairly represents what the total body of the law and interpretative information about the law says in the context of the facts before it. In this case the government would probably lose but you can never be sure In a case as clear as your example, the Government would very likely lose although no case is entirely certain, because it allows action at any time even though it is not a time of war, does not consider the home owner's consent, and does not create any meaningful procedure for exercising the right. But, it really doesn't matter if the violation is blatant or if it is subtle. The court even routinely rules that laws are unconstitutional not because they actually violate a provision of the constitution directly, but because they merely "burden" the exercise of a constitutional right. A law that effectively nullifies a constitutional provision would usually be invalidated. Sometimes lawyers informally and in private call an argument that is technically valid (for example, by creating a procedure albeit a meaningless one) "too cute." Arguments like that usually lose. The U.S. Supreme Court routinely invalidates laws that violate the constitution only in very subtle ways (e.g., requirements that have been interpreted to pose minor barriers to voting could be held unconstitutional), and the U.S. Supreme Court now and then refuses to invalidate laws that seemingly blatantly violate the constitution (e.g., "In God We Trust" on U.S. coins). Often a non-constitutional or settled constitutional law question is resolved purposely in a way that avoids the need to rule on an unresolved constitutional question Often, constitutional cases are resolved on the question of standing, or whether the right person has been sued, or by interpreting a law in a manner that is unnatural, in order to avoid having to address the question of the constitutionality of the law itself. For example, in your case, a judge might say that "at any time" in the statute, really means "at any time during a war", and that "regardless of the objections of the owner" really means "over the unreasonable objections of the owner", and that there is a duty to pay fair market value for the use of the house under the statute because the law is silent on that point, even if none of those things, in a cold plain reading of the statute would seem to be reasonable interpretations of its plain language. And then the judge might say that interpreted in this way, the law is constitutional, but the government violated the law and the court might then award a remedy to Bob, because the government violated the law so interpreted rather than because the government enforced an unconstitutional law. But, if it decides to take up a constitutional question because it isn't satisfied with how the U.S. Court of Appeals resolved the issue, it won't hesitate to do so.
The US Constitution doesn't say one way or the other how a state's representatives are to be chosen, so until this law was passed in 1841, a state could have all of their representatives elected at-large, without districts. It is only recently that SCOTUS has gotten involved in redistricting questions: here is a summary of leading redistricting rulings. A recurring theme in these rulings has been the Equal Protection Clause, where certain redistricting plans (or non-plans) were found to violate that clause (especially ordering a state to redistrict when it refused to do so with the result being that population changes diluted the vote of those living in certain districts). Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U.S. 1 held that The constitutional requirement in Art. I, § 2,that Representatives be chosen &quot;by the People of the several States&quot; means that, as nearly as is practicable, one person's vote in a congressional election is to be worth as much as another's thus redistricting is a justiciable question, answerable with respect to the federal government's need to enforce the 14th Amendment. It is not necessary to amend the Constitution further to specify a means of enforcing that clause.
Generally not. Federal court uses a principle known as the enrolled bill rule -- in deference to the coequal status of the three branches of government, the "enrolled bill" (the thing printed on fancy paper that actually went to the President for signature) is irrebuttable evidence that the law was properly passed. The courts cannot deal with inquiries into whether legislative process was followed; it's the legislature's job to decide what the right process is. They can't even look into whether the same text passed both houses -- as a matter of law, the enrolled bill is conclusive evidence that it did. Senate rules are enforceable in the Senate. But the Senate is the body in charge of enforcing them, not the courts.
It's actually simpler than you might expect: If you intend to spend more than US$5000 (which is nearly certain) you must fill out and file a Federal Election Commission (FEC) Form 2. There are 50 states that you now need to consider getting on their ballots. There is no requirement that you register in all of them but if you don't then you may have trouble winning the required electoral majority. The problem here is that every state has its own requirements but usually it's gathering signatures as required in that state's regulations. This is where you need an &quot;organization&quot; of some sort to gather signatures and get you properly placed on the ballots in all 50 states of all of the states you think you need to be on. The above assumes that you meet the US Constitution's criteria for a President. To my knowledge, President Trump, while he has make some statements to that effect, has not officially filed any forms at the federal or state level for the next presidential election so far. But anyone can say or imply that they are running and they may be but until the forms are filed it's not official.
Most of the implications here are political, not legal. For that, you'd have to ask Politics.SE. The law, however, is quite clear: If the President is alive, and &quot;a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide&quot; do not invoke the 25th amendment, the President would remain President and just not do their job in this case. Congress could presumably provide for a different set of people to validate the President's disability status, but in your hypothetical, this wouldn't happen due to a lack of consent from the Senate. The 25th amendment was created to solve this problem: it is the only solution to it. If it is not used, then there is no other means to remove a disabled-but-alive President. Most (all?) executive agencies can run themselves perfectly well day-to-day without the President's help, so nothing would be likely to fall apart immediately. There wouldn't be anyone to appoint new judges or other presidentially appointed officers, which would probably eventually become a problem.
It is certainly true that different states who share a Head of State can have different succession rules. Thus William IV of the United Kingdom was also King of Hannover. The UK allowed female succession, so Victoria was Queen of the United Kingdom; Hannover didn't, so he was succeeded by Ernest Augustus there. At the moment, all the Commonwealth Realms of which Elizabeth is Head of State have the same rules of succession. They all changed the rules regarding whether a first-born girl would be heir apparent together. They could decide to have different rules of succession, but they probably won't.