Bill would change presidential succession

[question everything]

Inland Valley Daily Bulletin

Bill would change presidential succession
Process to replace leaders would run through Cabinet
By Lisa Friedman
STAFF WRITER

Wednesday, October 06, 2004 - WASHINGTON - If tragedy strikes the nation's leaders, America would be better off under San Fernando Valley Congressman Brad Sherman's plan for presidential succession, constitutional scholars said Wednesday.

In a hearing before a House panel, academics and lawmakers praised the proposal by the Sherman Oaks Democrat for succession to run through the Cabinet rather than through congressional leadership.

(snip)

Sherman said his bill would prevent a situation in which the House speaker or Senate president pro tem of a different political party takes over.

(snip)

In addition to running the line of succession through the Cabinet, Sherman also proposed adding five ambassadors living outside Washington, D.C., to the end of the succession list in case the capital was attacked and all leaders were killed.

Currently, succession is designated by the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, which lists the line as president, vice president, House speaker, president pro tempore of the Senate, followed by Cabinet secretaries.

More..
http://www.dailybulletin.com/Stories/0,1413,203~21481~2450924,00.html#

Lisa Friedman can be reached by e-mail [e-mail] or by phone at [phone].

[LearnedHand]

1. Oh, GREAT!

Then we would end up with people who hadn't been elected to ANYTHING in the White House! Imagine, for a moment, if, oh, Rumsferatu ascended to Bush's* throne. Or (omigod, I can't imagine it -- it's too horrible!!!) ASSCRACK took the presidency.

Nope. Let's just keep the Constitutional order of succession JUST as it is!

[deadmessengers]

6. Accuracy check

First: Gerald Ford. 'nuff said.

Second: contrary to popular belief, the order of succession beyond the VP isn't specified in the Constitution. In article 2, sec 1, the Constitution says: "Congress may by Law provide for the Case of Removal, Death, Resignation or Inability, both of the President and Vice President". What this means is that beyond the VP level, Congress gets to decide - and they have done so 3 times in our nation's history, most recently in 1947. That's the law they're seeking to change.

So, what this means is that your worst case scenario, (Rumsfeld succeeding the Chimperor) is possible, if Cheney, Hastert, Stevens, Powell, and Snow were somehow taken out along with him.

Personally, I don't think having someone in the line of succession who is not a permanent D.C. resident is such a bad idea, as long as they're at the END of the line of succession, and will only be used in an absolute cataclysm, like D.C. getting nuked during the State of the Union or something like that.

[sally343434]

2. Oh please

We've already seen what having an unelected thug in the white house does. It's been a nightmare for the past four years.

No, let's at least have supposedly elected people in the line of succession. That was the original idea, and it makes sense.

I'm not sure, but I'll bet that these "academics and lawmakers" are probably RW whack jobs.

[PATRICK]

4. This falsely treats the POTUS

as some kind of royalty who can bestow unelected power upon his appointees(includes ambassadors).

That also opens up the intrigue and tyranny of royal succession, some troll appointee who is out of town when the bomb falls.

In this plan a cynical check might be outside the pale of planning. That the successor be banned from serving the next elected term. That he have no power over the election process whatever his emergency powers are. That appointing a Congress must come from the states strictly in accordance with the party balance that existed before.(The state elected officials(governors) should be in the line of outside succession by seniority and party affiliation under the same emergency term limit.

How much paranoia needs to go into this updating of succession? A lot, since it is based on real and extreme dangers that did not exist in the past. No one has elected the shadow government either. Lord knows how THEY are appointed. Effectively this sets up a coup for a totally unelected government, much worse than Rangel's proposition for the draft.

[Ready4Change]

3. If it aint broke

Don't "fix" it.

Have we ever needed more than the VP in the line of succession?

[shaolinmonkey]

5. President Tommy Thompson, yeah, that'd be awesome.

He'd spend all his time at Wisconsin football games.

Worst idea ever.

[left is right]

7. most of the time if the pres, the vp are both

taken down (or out), I would be forced to think that what the country needed was the other party taking control of the country. Think about it,if they are both so corrupt they have to be removed it is likely that the cabinet is also corrupt, too. The other party would be more likely to clean up the mess. OR, say they are both targeted by radical foreign terrorist for policies that inflict hurt on the developing world and are assassinated, wouldn't the logical conclusion be that we would be safer with the other party that might change the hurtful policies?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

8. More like a reversion than a change

In the old days, the Secretary of State was next in line after the president and vice-president, and then on down the Cabinet all the way to the Postmaster General.