[GCFL-discuss] who was president 12:01 pm yesterday

Thu Jan 29 21:16:59 CST 2009

OK, I'll answer the question, but greenBubble, if you ever become
president, you have to appoint me to the Supreme Court. I promise to turn
down any arguments that equal protection of the laws entitles anyone to a
license to marry anyone or anything except a human being of the opposite
sex, and I'll also uphold Roe v. Wade. 50:50 ain't bad. I'll keep
everyone amused the way I do it, sort of a cross of Hugo Black and
Antonin Scalia.

Before those two amendments were adopted, the constitution basically said
nothing about presidential succession, except of course for the
vice-president. As John Adams said, when he became the first chosen for
that office "I am nothing, but I may be everything."

The first thing Amendment XX did was set the term of a president to being
Jan 20 instead of in March. It used to take 4-5 months for a president to
pack up his stuff and get to Washington anyway. Even if someone declared
war on us in the meantime, it would have taken three months for an
official declaration to arrive. With improved transportation,
communication, etc. it seemed a good idea to shorten the time. This was
1933, and the economy lost a whole lot of ground sitting still under
Hoover, before Roosevelt finally got his hands on things. Since Roosevelt
didn't have the foggiest idea what the New Deal would look like, just a
determination to try things until something worked, time lost was a real
set-back.

Next, Amendment XX tried to anticipate various things that might go wrong
with presidential succession. What if the president-elect died before
taking office? What if he didn't qualify? In that case, the vice
president would take the office. Seems obvious, but it wasn't in the
constitution, so it couldn't just happen. The amendment also authorized
congress to provide by law for what happens if one of the people from
whom the House can choose a president, or from whom the senate can choose
a vice-president, died before the decision was made. That is important,
because unless the constitution says congress may pass a law, congress
simply has no power to do so. They can try, but the Supreme Court will
declare the law exceeds congress's constitutionally delegated powers, and
nullify it, just like Alexander Hamilton and James Madison said it should
do (its in The Federalist Papers).

By 1967, there were all kinds of new worries. What if the president dies,
the vice president succeeds, then the vice-president dies? We need a way
to choose a new vice president. What if the president has a stroke, or
goes insane, and is unable to perform his duties? Basically the
vice-president and the cabinet are authorized to report this to the
president pro tem of the senate and the speaker of the house, and the
vice president will take charge until the president is ready to take the
job back. Sort of like Raul Castro taking over for Fidel while he was in
the hospital. If the president and vice president disagree, a majority
vote of congress decides it. (What if the president is too crazy to know
he is too crazy to perform the duties of the office).

But I'm wrong about where Congress gets the authority to decide
succession beyond the vice president. That was there all along, in
Article II, Section [6]: Congress may by law provide for the Case of
Removal, Death, Resignation, or Inability, both of the President and the
Vice President, declaring what Officer shall then act as President..."

As far as I know though, it was sometime since WW II that congress
actually provided the chain of succession through the speaker of the
house, president pro tem of the senate, cabinet officers in order of
seniority of their office, starting with secretary of state. The thinking
became, what if we have a nuclear war and half the government is
incinerated or out of communication, who's in charge?

That's enough for one email.

Siarlys

On Thu, 29 Jan 2009 00:22:23 -0500 "Discussion of the Good, Clean Funnies
List" <gcfl-discuss at gcfl.net> writes:
Point taken. This was an interesting exercise in what-it, although it
turned out that the premise was flawed.  but the exercise was fun.

Now a new question, inspired by -- but independent of -- the previous
discussion.
Siarlys (our resident constitutional scholar)
Please elaborate on this statement: 
Succession to the office of president, beyond the vice president, is
established by a congressional 
statute, adopted under the authority of Amendment XX (1933) and Amendment
XXV (1967). 
What does the amendment say and what does the statue say?  i thought
there were several layers of congressional leaders in line before the
cabinet, not just two.
Zvi Freund

From: gcfl-discuss-bounces_milton.freund=siemens.com at gcfl.net
[mailto:gcfl-discuss-bounces_milton.freund=siemens.com at gcfl.net] On
Behalf Of Discussion of the Good, Clean Funnies List
Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2009 10:58 PM
To: Freund, Milton (H USA)
Subject: Re: [GCFL-discuss] who was president 12:01 pm yesterday

My point is, until they either DO resign to become president, or pass,
the office does not fall to anyone else. So talking about the Secretary
of State or any other cabinet officer (they are all in line, in order of
how old their position is), becoming president for a few minutes, is
nonsense.

If a major crisis had erupted on Jan 20 around noon, either Bush or Obama
or both would have handled it. Nobody else.

Siarlys

On Tue, 27 Jan 2009 00:29:16 -0500 "Discussion of the Good, Clean Funnies
List" <gcfl-discuss at gcfl.net> writes:
Siarlys 
Please elaborate on this statement: 
Succession to the office of president, beyond the vice president, is
established by a congressional 
statute, adopted under the authority of Amendment XX (1933) and Amendment
XXV (1967). 
The congressional statute you refer to (which I saw before starting this
thread but thought was part of the amendment), states explicitly that the
Speaker or President pro temp must resign before assuming the presidency.

greenBubble 
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