Presidential Succession Law: Ticking Time Bomb?
The perils of placing two members of Congress before the Cabinet.
by John C. Wohlstetter
August 10, 2021, 11:18 PM
My series on the 25th Amendment — Part I, historical antecedents; Part II, 25th Amendment genesis; Part III, 25th Amendment implementation today; and Part IV, possible first-ever use of the 25th Amendment’s involuntary presidential disability provision — focused almost exclusively on the Constitutional issues, dipping down into legislative enactment (in legal shorthand parlance, “statutory”) issues only when necessary.
As noted in my series, presidential succession, as enacted as part of the landmark 1947 National Security Act, created the potential for serious conflict at a time when stability is most needed; the updated presidential succession statute is set forth below. Placing the Speaker of the House and President pro tempore of the Senate immediately after the vice president and before any member of the president’s Cabinet — in Constitutional parlance, “heads of the executive departments” — risks having an administration being turned over to the opposition party, in stark contravention of voter preference expressed in the polling booth.
The law provides:
Only the Speaker and president pro tem can ascend to the Office of the Presidency for the full remainder of a presidential term.
If the elected president is temporarily unable to discharge the “powers and duties” of the presidency, the Speaker or president pro tem serve merely as acting president — they assume the “powers and duties” of the presidency, but do not hold the office — until the president is able to resume serving as president.
Members of the Cabinet cannot hold the Office (or title) of President — they can only serve as acting president.
The Speaker and president pro tem must irrevocably resign from Congress to become president or acting president. A new Speaker can supplant a president pro tem who is acting president, but cannot replace a president pro tem who also holds the Office of President.
Members of the president’s Cabinet stand in line of succession in the order that the departments were created.
There is no line of succession to the vice presidency.
Under Art. II, section 1 of the U.S. Constitution, to be eligible to hold the Office of the Presidency, a person must be: (a) a natural-born citizen; (b) at least 35 years old; (c) been at least 14 years a resident of the U.S.
No one who fails to meet these requirements — whether Speaker or president pro tem or Cabinet member — can qualify to hold the Office of the President; nor can they serve as acting president.
more
https://spectator.org/presidential-succession-law-ticking-time-bomb/
