U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday introduced a proposal to create a Commission on Presidential Capacity, a week after Republican President Donald Trump announced he had COVID-19.

The measure involves a 17-member panel to study Trump's health condition, and allow the Congress to discharge the president of his executive duties under the 25th Amendment.

The Democrats, in the U.S. House of Representatives, said their legislation would activate a long-ignored provision of the 25th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1967, empowering Congress to create such a commission.

"This is not about President Trump," Pelosi said Friday when asked if the proposal is made due to concerns over Trump's health condition. "He will face the judgment of the voters. But he shows the need for us to create a process for future presidents."

Pelosi has raised experts' concerns that some of the drugs Trump took to battle his COVID-19 symptoms could cloud a person's judgment.

Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin, the bill's sponsor, said the 17-member commission would be made up of eight medical personnel, eight former executive-branch officials and a 17th member chosen by the group.

"What happens if a president, any president, ends up in a coma or on a ventilator and has made no provisions for the temporary transfer of power," Raskin said in urging that Congress pass his legislation next year.

The 25th Amendment, sparked by the 1963 assassination of President John Kennedy, establishes the transfer of presidential power if a president or vice president dies or is incapacitated.

The Democratic legislation seeks to provide more clarity on the triggers for transferring power from the elected president or vice president to a temporary or permanent replacement.

House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, a Republican, accused Pelosi of trying to undo the results of the 2016 election, having failed to do so with the House impeachment of Trump that ended with a Senate acquittal.

"Here she is again ... trying to overturn the results of next month's election," Scalise told Fox News.

(With input from Reuters)