Presidential succession questions

July 29, 2004 10:25 AM

What would happen if, the day after the election, the president AND the vice-president elect were killed? [More presidential succession questions and info inside]

According to the Encyclopedia Americana:

Article II, Section 1, Clause 6 also authorizes Congress to establish a line of succession to the presidency in the event of simultaneous vacancies in the offices of president and vice president. Pursuant to this provision, Congress adopted a law in 1947 that places the following persons in the line of succession after the vice president: first the Speaker of the House, then the president pro tempore of the Senate, and then the members of the cabinet in the order in which their departments were created.

The 20th Amendment provides for other contingencies. In the event of the death of a president-elect, it provides that the vice president-elect shall become president for the full term. If a president-elect fails to qualifyfor example, by falling short of residency or age requirementsthen the vice president-elect acts as president until the president qualifies. The amendment further authorizes Congress to provide for the death or failure to qualify of both the president-elect and vice president-elect, which Congress has done in the succession law of 1947.

Does this mean that the Speaker of the House would serve the entire 4-year term? Would that be the Speaker from before the election, or if the House had changed sides in the recent election, the *new* Speaker? Could a special election be held after one year?

Would this situation (because the Constitution is a bit vague, simply leaving arrangements to Congress) require the involvement of the Supreme Court?

posted by junkbox to law & government (14 comments total)

Well, since the president elect doesn't take office until a few months after the election, if the current president & VP die before Jan 21 (or whatever the date is,) then the current Speaker of the house would be the pres. until the change-of-power. If you're talking about the Pres & VP-elects dying, then I'd say the person who's the speaker of the house in Jan when the change of power would normally happen, would be there for 4 years.

Watch it though. The secret service are going to be on your ass (read: PATRIOT ACT!) for even saying "President" and "killed" in the same sentence!

But probably it would go to the Supreme Court and we *know* how THAT would turn out!
posted by aacheson at 10:41 AM on July 29, 2004

What if something happened and George W. Bush couldn't be President anymore? For example, what if Bush were to be impeached? The job would go to Dick Cheney. But what if Cheney was also impeached? Then it would be time to say "Hello" to

President Dennis Hastert
posted by matteo at 10:46 AM on July 29, 2004

This is probably one of those cases where the Electoral College would actually be a good thing.

Keep in mind that when you vote, you're not actually voting for President and Vice-President--you're voting for electors. In a case such as this one, the electors for the winning candidate could, and probably would, all get together and agree to vote for someone else, who would then become president.

But your original question remains if you just change "the day after the election" to "the day after the Electoral College votes." In that case, the Succession Act the Americana article refers to applies. Its full text is available via Wikipedia.

Would that be the Speaker from before the election, or if the House had changed sides in the recent election, the *new* Speaker?

Congressional Representatives take office on Jan. 3; the President on Jan. 20. If the majority in Congress had changed sides, presumably the majority would be sure to elect a Speaker before Jan. 20 so he would become President.

Does this mean that the Speaker of the House would serve the entire 4-year term? Would that be the Speaker from before the election, or if the House had changed sides in the recent election, the *new* Speaker? Could a special election be held after one year?

Per the Succession Act, the Speaker would serve the full term.

Would this situation (because the Constitution is a bit vague, simply leaving arrangements to Congress) require the involvement of the Supreme Court?

Except Congress has already made those arrangements, i.e., the Succession Act. The SC would only get involved if the Succession Act itself were unclear in a particular case.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 10:47 AM on July 29, 2004

Say a terror attack took out Bush and Cheney after they had won reelection. The existing -- and woefully deficient -- succession statute would make Speaker of the House Denny Hastert the President of the United States. And that situation would last until at least January 20, 2005, even if the Democratic party had won control of Congress in the 2004 elections -- since during that time period, the new Congress would not yet have been formed.
In short, a terror attack could easily take the presidency into uncharted territory. What if President Hastert vetoed any law that would replace him, under a law passed by a new Democratic-controlled Congress? And what if the Republicans had enough votes to thwart a veto override?
There are endless "undemocratic" potentials, but these examples make the point. The failure of Congress to resolve these problems is inexcusable. And, unfortunately, it can get worse.
posted by matteo at 10:48 AM on July 29, 2004

Congress is sworn in during the first week in January, two weeks before the presidential inauguration. So when the term of the existing president expires on January 20, the speaker of the house - of the new Congress - takes over.

In practice, this would get pretty interesting. The first thing that a new Congress does is elect a new Speaker from among them. Currently, the party leaders are assumed to be front-runners for the speakership. So unless there is a change in the leadership, either Hastert or Pelosi will be elected Speaker in January 2005.

Of course, if the House knows that the Speaker they elect will go on to become president, this election would take on new meaning. But it would not be considered a coup for the House to select the next president - indeed, this is done whenever a presidential candidate fails to receive a majority of electoral votes. The difference in this case would be that the House would be selecting a new president who might not have originally run for president in the election cycle. It would certainly be a unique event, but recall that when Jerry Ford became president he had only been elected by a single congressional district.

On preview, what everyone else said. The constitution requires that the president is elected once every four years. It would probably be unconstitutional to hold an interim election, even with Congress' consent.
posted by PrinceValium at 10:53 AM on July 29, 2004

What would happen if, the day after the election, the president AND the vice-president elect were killed?

The last election? Well, there would have been a lot of dancing.
Sorry, but someone had to say it.
posted by Shane at 10:56 AM on July 29, 2004

And I bet you're saying, someone should make this AskMe question into a novel! Jeff Greenfield (from CNN) already did.
posted by ALongDecember at 11:05 AM on July 29, 2004

What if President Hastert vetoed any law that would replace him

What if any president vetoed a law that would replace him?

He'd still be replaced on January 20, 2005, because that's the current law.

The failure of Congress to resolve these problems is inexcusable.

What, precisely, are the problems you are referring to? Because I fail to see them.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 11:14 AM on July 29, 2004

Here's the U.S. Code version of the Presidential Succession Act.
posted by MrMoonPie at 11:14 AM on July 29, 2004

What PrinceValium said. To put some more concrete information on it:

The 2004 Electoral College meets on December 13. Although 26 states have laws that bind their electors to their states' popular vote, presumably many of those laws break that tie if the candidates have died before the electoral vote.

If a sitting president and vice-president in 2004 were to be re-elected but die before December 13, the electoral college would likely vote for different candidates, though I won't get anywhere near speculation about whether they'd vote for the runner-up in the election or for replacements for the winners from the same party.

If a sitting president and vice-president were to be re-elected but die after December 13, let's say on Christmas Day (just to be particularly morbid), then the person who is Speaker of the House on December 25 would be sworn in as President (after resigning from Congress, per the rule shown in The West Wing), and would fill the existing term until January 20, 2005.

At noon EST on that day, that Presidential term ends, and there would be no President-elect or Vice President-elect. The current Succession Act says that the Speaker of the House at that time would become President, so he or she would be sworn in for a four-year term. He would then nominate a Vice President, who would be sworn in to fill that term until noon EST, January 20, 2009. There is no provision in the act for replacement of either of these executives, unless they resign or die in office.

I can understand the desire to hold an interim election, to replace such an executive team that the nation did not elect, but I should also point out that the more options there are, the more that the crazed may see assassination as a viable political method. I have long viewed the definite nature of Presidential succession as rock-solid stability in the case of unbelievable turmoil.

Think about it. No matter who dislikes George W. Bush or John Kerry, they're unlikely to view Dick Cheney, John Edwards, Dennis Hastert, or Nancy Pelosi as better options. Even if the Speaker of the House is not of the President's party, those who oppose the President and Vice President are unlikely to see a party stalwart like Hastert or Pelosi as so preferable as to be worth the risk of uniting the country behind the President's party.

Compare that to 1995 Israel. An arch-conservative assassinated liberal (Labor) prime minister Yithzak Rabin. The Knesset approved Labor foreign minister Shimon Peres as his interim replacement, but the country went to the ballot box just six months later, and they elected Likkud arch-conservative Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister (indirectly, through the Knesset, but you know).

It was just the result that the assassin had wanted. The US's rigid Succession Act, and no provision for interim Presidential elections, makes such a success extremely unlikely here, and that's fine by me. In the very worst case scenario, where a thoroughly corrupt Congress appoints a thoroughly corrupt President and refuses to impeach him, the voters get the chance to replace that Congress in just two years.

Sure, there's a chance that a corrupt President with his finger on the nuclear trigger can destroy the world in just a few days, but I can't think of any Succession Act revisions that could solve that problem. We live in a dangerous world.

(On Preview: a replacement President couldn't veto a "law" to replace him, because the President's term is Constitutional, down to the start date. Once the President is in office, Congress can remove him or her via impeachment and conviction, but that's it.)
posted by mdeatherage at 11:25 AM on July 29, 2004

And for those concerned about having an unelected President, I'll note that the nation didn't degenerate into chaos when Gerald Ford held the office for over two years. I'm not aware of anyone demanding or even seriously considering interim elections during his term, even if it were possible.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 12:02 PM on July 29, 2004

The nation didn't degenerate into chaos when Gerald Ford held the office for over two years.

No, but overall, we were at peace and economic prosperity at the time. Ford was not an activist president, and he relied heavily on Nixon alumni for policy advice. An unelected president that ushered in a dramatically different policy agenda would be treated with far more suspicion. given an educated electorate and a truly independent media, of course
posted by PrinceValium at 12:41 PM on July 29, 2004

Isn't this why they setup the Shadow Government? See, the Constitution thinks of everything!
posted by Voivod at 2:35 PM on July 29, 2004

Wasn't this covered in the new Battlestar Galactica?
posted by bingo at 4:17 PM on July 29, 2004