Professor John Feerick wrote an article published in the New York Law Journal on working with now passed Senator Birch Bayh on drafting the 25th Amendment.
As part of efforts to solve the Constitution’s succession gaps, the American Bar Association and Senator Bayh collaborated to convene a small conference of twelve lawyers. When the group met that January morning I was fortunate enough to sit next to Senator Bayh. It was the first time I met the 34-year-old senator from Indiana and the beginning of a relationship that profoundly impacted my life.
Following the ABA conference, Senator Bayh gave me the opportunity to work with him on the crafting and drafting of the 25th Amendment. Our relationship continued as he joined with the ABA to attempt amending the Constitution to provide for direct election of the president and vice president. Watching him build support for reform became a seminal experience for me.
We continued to collaborate on other programs involving the Constitution. Several years ago, I received an unexpected call from him. I was organizing a presidential succession program in New York, and he needed information about our work on the 25th Amendment. It was a topic he expected would come up in an interview with the New York Times for his obituary. He remarked that we both had come into the field of presidential succession as young men and would be leaving the field that brought us together as much older men.