The Imperial Presidency, Part 2

[robkelk]

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If that happens according to that timetable and it takes as long for the amendment to pass as it took the Twenty-first Amendment to pass, it doesn't give His Orangeness the satisfaction of being elected fair-and-square. If he cares about the rules (based on past performance, that's a mighty big "if", but maybe somebody convinces him to do it that way for how he'll look to other world leaders), he'd want the amendment process to start at least two months earlier than in that timetable. (But not too much earlier, so that his opposition doesn't have time to ready a defence if they're taken by surprise.)

Would he go with State ratifying convention ratification instead of State legislature ratification? While that wouldn't be a complete avoidance of the state legislatures -- New Mexico law says that the members of the legislature are the convention -- it would provide more control over the timetable. Also, ratifying conventions were used the only other time that an amendment repealed another amendment.