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"I wonder if that family of ticks in my yard knows that they're going to change the Tennessee state Constitution as a result of their actions."

I was just about to create an "Insects and the Law" tag... and I was getting some big ideas about teaching an Insects and the Law course at the law school. (You know about my longstanding interest in insect politics.) But then I thought: Hey, wait a minute. Ticks are not insects. And all my grandiose ideas came crashing down at 6:44 a.m.

I confirmed my suspicion by consulting Tikipedia. Arachnid! Will there be enough posts to justify an "Arachnids and the Law" tag? The thing about tags is that you don't want them to be too small, but they shouldn't get too big either. Something that will have 5 to 35 posts -- that's the target zone. I'm thinking Arthropods and the Law. And then just a plain old arachnids tag.

Anyway, the quote in the title is from this news article, which is linked by Glenn Reynolds, in a post about -- naturally -- the Blagojevich controversy.

(We need a cute name for the Blagomess. Blagosmear? Not Blagogate. The opportunities are too ripe to squander on another "-gate." Blag-oh-no.)

Glenn agrees with me about the interpretation of the provision of the Illinois constitution that the state attorney general, Lisa Madigan, is trying to use to push Governor Blagojevich aside without the troublesome safeguards of the impeachment process. Glenn worked on an amendment to the Tennessee constitution that is analogous to the provision Madigan has seized upon in what I consider to be an illicit power grab.

The Tennessee amendment was the consequence of a tick bite: Governor Phil Bredesen got quite sick after an arachnid attack, and it was decided that there needed to be a procedure to transfer power in case the governor becomes incapacitated.

There's also a provision in the United States Constitution, Section 4 of the 25th Amendment:

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.

You may remember the dramatic moment in the movie "Air Force One" -- spoiler alert -- when Secretary of Defense Dean Stockwell tries to use the 25th Amendment to oust President Harrison Ford, and Vice President Glenn Close refuses to sign.

Now, I've finally gotten Glenn Reynolds and Glenn Close together in one post -- with ticks. I think that says something about my authority to say that these constitutional provisions are about dealing with physical incapacity -- including unconsciousness and brain damage -- not with political and legal problems, however severe.

Impeachment has important procedural safeguards that should not be bypassed, and the importance of the protections of constitutional process is not diminished by an opinion that the executive in question is a blood-sucking tick.

IN THE COMMENTS: BlogDog coins "Blago-a-gogo."

Full post as published by Althouse on December 13, 2008 (boomark / email).