Roberts double-flubs: Obama can retake Oath of Office, just like Coolidge and Arthur
2009/01/21/1240Here we go… more and more people are calling for a “do over” with the Presidential Oath. After looking into it, I have become convinced that it’s no big deal. Go ahead! Take the oath a second time; previous Presidents Coolidge and Arthur did.
RTFA: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2…
In giving the oath, Roberts misplaced the word “faithfully,” at which point Obama paused quizzically. Roberts then corrected himself, but Obama repeated the words as Roberts initially said them.
A do-over “would take him 30 seconds, he can do it in private, it’s not a big deal, and he ought to do it just to be safe,” said Boston University constitutional scholar and Supreme Court watcher Jack Beermann. “It’s an open question whether he’s president until he takes the proper oath.”
The courts would probably never hear a challenge, and some might argue that Obama automatically took office at noon because that’s when President Bush left the office. But because the procedure is so explicitly prescribed in the Constitution, Beermann said if he were Obama’s lawyer, he would recommend retaking it, just as two previous presidents, Calvin Coolidge and Chester Arthur, did under similar circumstances.
“The Constitution says what he’s supposed to say,” Beermann said. “… It’s kind of surprising the chief justice couldn’t get it right.”
From Wikipedia for Calvin Coolidge:
On August 2, 1923, President Harding died while on a speaking tour in California. Vice-President Coolidge was visiting his family home, which did not have electricity or a telephone, in Vermont when he received word by messenger of Harding’s death. Coolidge dressed, said a prayer, and came downstairs to greet the reporters who had assembled. His father, a notary public, administered the oath of office in the family’s parlor by the light of a kerosene lamp at 2:47 a.m. on August 3, 1923; Coolidge then went back to bed. Coolidge returned to Washington the next day, and was re-sworn by Justice A. A. Hoehling of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, as there was some confusion over whether a state notary public had the authority to administer the presidential oath.
Also, from Chester A. Arthur’s entry:
President Arthur took the oath of office twice. The first time was just past midnight at his Lexington Avenue residence on September 20 by New York Supreme Court justice John R. Brady; the second time was upon his return to Washington two days later.
It appears that there is precedent for the following:
1) taking the oath more than once
2) performing the oath for a private audience
On this basis, there is no downside for Obama to take the oath a second time. John Roberts, on the other hand, will forever be remembered as “that guy” who became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court without memorizing the constitution. Of course, that’s basically a joke: Roberts obviously knows the US Constitution, and there’s almost no chance he’s unaware of Coolidge’s and Arthur’s re-swearing of the Oath of Office.
Is it even conceivable that Roberts was attempting to have Obama swear a similar, but inaccurate, oath as a precedent for some later action? In this scenario, Roberts, knowing full well that previous presidents have re-sworn the oath to avoid some catastrophic technicality, would also be aware that Obama could trivially reswear the oath, but in this scenario, Obama didn’t do so. An open question: what could this kind of “set up” be building towards?