DURING WATERGATE, THEN-SPEAKER CARL ALBERT SAID THAT IF HE HAD ASSUMED THE PRESIDENCY, HE WOULD HAVE HAD CONGRESS APPOINT A REPUBLICAN VP AND THEN RESIGN. MY QUESTION IS, WOULD THE 22ND AMENDMENT'S "MORE THAN TWO YEARS" OF ANOTHER PRESIDENT'S TERM HAVE BEEN RESET BY ALBERT'S INTERREGNUM OR WOULD THE MORE THAN TWO YEARS LEFT IN NIXON'S TERM APPLY?
Just to give some background information for those who might not know what you’re referring to: the 22nd Amendment prohibits someone from being elected to more than one term as President if they’ve completed more than two years of their predecessor’s unfinished term. As an example, if Gerald Ford had won the 1976 election, he wouldn’t have been able to run for another term in 1980 because he served more than two years of Richard Nixon’s unfinished term after Nixon resigned. On the other hand, if Lyndon B. Johnson had wanted to run for another term in 1968 – despite being elected in 1964 – he could have done so because there were less than two years left in President Kennedy’s term when LBJ succeeded JFK at the time of the assassination.
To answer your question, if there had been a vacancy in the Vice Presidency at the time of President Nixon’s resignation and Speaker of the House Carl Albert had assumed the Presidency and himself decided to resign upon the appointment and confirmation of a Vice President, I believe that the 22nd Amendment’s parameters for his successor would apply to the remainder of Nixon’s term instead of Albert’s. I don’t think the timing would “reset” because Albert wouldn’t have been starting a new Administration, he would have been completing Nixon’s term and four-year Administration that began on January 20, 1973 and would end on January 20, 1977.
There are so many potential Constitutional stumbling blocks and Constitutional questions surrounding Presidential succession that it is not only confusing but really dangerous when you really think about it. If something like this actually happened, or if there was an incident that resulted in going further down the line of succession than the Vice President, Speaker of the House, and president pro tempore of the Senate then we would obviously be in the midst of a serious national emergency. Ideally, we would have definitive answers at a time like that instead of a host of potential Constitutional debates about who may or may not be in charge of the country.
Anyway, the reason that I believe the 22nd Amendment’s restrictions would apply to the remainder of Nixon’s term instead of Albert’s term in your question actually seems to be reaffirmed by the 25th Amendment. The 25th Amendment says that when the Speaker of the House or president pro tempore of the Senate assumes the Presidency they “shall…act as President”, which could (and, in this case, should) be interpreted differently than the succession of a Vice President in whom all of the duties and powers of the Presidency devolve upon when they assume the office. To put it another way: the Vice President becomes President when they assume the Presidency, but the Constitution seems to mean that the Speaker/president pro tem are merely acting as President until a proper successor qualifies. Although, in your scenario, Albert would be a new President, he wouldn’t be completing a new term. That unfinished term of Nixon’s would have continued until January 20, 1977, no matter who completed it. Anyone who assumed the Presidency prior to January 20, 1975 would have been prohibited by the 22nd Amendment from being elected to more than one term of their own.
