Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Presidential Line of Succession

Starting point is 00:00:00 Many movies and television shows have as their plot some disaster that eliminates the United States government. As a result, some low-level cabinet official becomes president who then has to solve the crisis. How accurate is such a scenario? What really would happen if multiple members of the executive branch were incapacitated? Learn more about the presidential line of succession, its history, and what would happen if the unthinkable were to occur on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed.

Starting point is 00:00:51 It effectively turned day into night. And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR. Most of what I'm going to talk about in this episode is entirely theoretical. I can't think of any real-world example. where an entire country had its leadership eliminated in one fell swoop. That being said, it is a problem that has to be considered. Because if something horrible did happen and there wasn't a contingency plan in place,

Starting point is 00:01:26 it could completely destroy a political system. And with that being said, the issue of succession of a national leader is really only an issue in presidential systems. In a parliamentary system, replacing a leader can be done pretty easily. All it takes is the majority party or coalition to take a vote. and you have a new prime minister. There are some issues regarding the short-term incapacitation of a prime minister. For example, when former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson was in intensive care for COVID, there was a question of who would act as Prime Minister. There's no equivalent

Starting point is 00:01:58 of a vice president in most parliamentary systems. In the recent case in the UK, the Prime Minister just appointed someone else to take his place in cabinet meetings. Because it's so easy to replace a Prime Minister, these problems are only short-term problems. You'd only need to worry about who be in charge for a few hours until a new vote could take place. In a presidential system, it's a completely different game. Presidents are elected by a vote on a set timetable. You can't just organize a snap election that wasn't scheduled. When the U.S. Constitution was written, they covered this eventuality with the Office of Vice President, and I previously did an entire episode about the Office of the Vice Presidency. For all practical purposes, the Vice President

Starting point is 00:02:38 covers the issue of presidential succession. There have been nine times in U.S. history where a president either died in office or resigned. In all nine cases, the vice president became the president, and that was that. Here is the exact text in the original constitution regarding presidential succession. Quote, in the case of the removal of the president from office or of his death, resignation, or inability to discharge the powers and duties of the said office, the same shall devolve on the vice president, and the Congress may by law provide for the case of removal, death, resignation, or inability, both of the president and vice president, declaring what officer shall then act as president, and such officers shall act accordingly

Starting point is 00:03:20 until the disability be removed, or president shall be elected. End quote. If you read it really close, it doesn't say that the vice president becomes president. It says that the powers and duties of the president devolve to the vice president. It's a minor distinction, but it was an important one when it first became an issue. William Henry Harrison died in 1841 with John Tyler as his vice president, and a lot of people only thought that Tyler would be the acting president and not take the title of president. Tyler, figuring it was better to ask for forgiveness and permission, immediately took the oath of office without any debate or advice. It set a precedent every vice president who has ascended to the presidency has followed, and the 25th Amendment finally

Starting point is 00:04:04 codified it. However, the Constitution still says that Congress can declare what official would act as president if the president and vice president were incapacitated. So, what has Congress done about that? There have been three separate congressional acts in U.S. history that cover the issue of presidential succession. The first law was the Presidential Succession Act of 1792. The issue was first brought up in the very first Congress in 1790. There were many suggestions as to who should take over in the event that both the president and the vice president were removed. The president pro-temporary and the Speaker of the House were suggested, as were the

Starting point is 00:04:42 Secretary of State and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. The political landscape at the time influenced the debate. Thomas Jefferson was the then-Secretary of State, so Federalists didn't want the Secretary of State to assume the position. Separation of power issues were the primary objections to either the President pro-temporary of the Senate or Speaker of the House or Chief Justice from assuming the position. However, in the second Congress, the issue was picked up again, and the president pro-temporary and the Speaker were once again put into the line of succession, however,

Starting point is 00:05:12 only in an acting capacity. There was also a stipulation that a new election would be held to elect a new president. At the time, presidential electors were not elected by popular vote, so an election could be conducted much quicker than it probably could today. According to statute, the election would be held the next November whenever the vacancies occurred. The newly elected president would then serve a full four-year term, which would have totally reset the current four-year presidential cycle. Such an election never took place, but because there was no constitutional mechanism to replace a vice president, the vice presidency was vacant every time a

Starting point is 00:05:49 president died. In each of those cases, a special election would have been called had the new president died. When James Garfield was assassinated in 1881, there was a big problem. At the time of his death, the offices of President Pro Tempore and the Speaker of the House were both vacant. If something happened to the new president, Chester Arthur, nothing in the current legislation would cover this eventuality. In 1884, Grover Cleveland was elected president, and in 1885, his vice president, Thomas Hendricks, died in office after just eight months. There was clearly a need to expand the succession list beyond the two leaders in Congress. The Presidential Succession Act of 1886,

Starting point is 00:06:31 removed any members of the legislative branch and replaced them with members of the cabinet in the order in which the cabinet departments were created. The order after the vice president was now the secretary of state, secretary of the treasury, secretary of war, attorney general, postmaster general, secretary of the navy, and then the secretary of the interior. Furthermore, cabinet members could only ascend to the presidency if they were eligible to be president, which means they needed to meet the age and citizenship requirements. This wasn't the end of changes to the presidential line of succession. After Franklin Roosevelt died, Harry Truman requested several changes to the Succession Act.

Starting point is 00:07:10 His biggest request was that the Senate pro tempore and the Speaker of the House both be re-inserted into the succession list, but in reverse order, with the Speaker of the House being placed first. Truman's logic was that elected officials should be placed higher on the list than appointed officials. The 1947 Presidential Succession Act made these changes and also added more Captain departments. The 1947 Act is basically the law that governs succession today, with small modifications made for when new cabinet departments were created. After the assassination of President John Kennedy, the issue of their not being a replacement for the vice president was addressed in the 25th Amendment. With this amendment, if there was a vacancy in the vice presidency, the president could appoint a new vice president subject to the approval of the Senate.

Starting point is 00:07:56 This has only happened once, the resignation of Vice President Spiro Agden in 1973. and the appointment of Gerald Ford as vice president. The 25th Amendment also covered cases of temporary disablingment of the president. This was addressed because of the stroke which disabled President Woodrow Wilson at the end of his administration, and it was also an issue in 1955 when President Eisenhower had a heart attack. Having such a long line of succession was almost an entirely theoretical exercise. The odds of so many people dying all at once was astronomical, but that all changed with the advent of nuclear weapons.

Starting point is 00:08:31 Now there was a real threat of all of Washington being destroyed and many people on the Succession List being killed in a single attack. This risk was especially poignant when all the branches of government were assembled in one place, usually during a State of the Union address. A terrorist attack could wipe out almost the entire government at such an event. And this led to the notion of a designated survivor. At every such gathering since the 1950s, one person on the presidential succession list has been selected not to be in attendance at the State of the Union address.

Starting point is 00:09:04 This is almost always a cabinet official, but on occasion, the President Protempori has also not attended. The designated survivor is usually a lower-ranking cabinet official, but pretty much every department has been represented at one time or another. The White House chief of staff is usually the person that selects the designated survivor. The location of the designated survivors is always kept a secret, but they're usually located somewhere outside of Washington, and in some cases they haven't even been in the United States. They are given secret service protection for the short duration of the event, and there is always someone with the nuclear football standing by. Past designated survivors report that they're usually at home and would often

Starting point is 00:09:43 just have dinner during the State of the Union address. Since 2005, both houses of Congress have also appointed their own designated survivors. There are four members in total which are designated, two from each party and from each house. The purpose of the congressional designated survivors is to rebuild Congress and continue its traditions and provide some sort of continuity with previous Congresses. There are still those who think that there needs to be a new Succession Act. The reason is that two people from the legislative branch are in the line of succession. In the event that one party controls both houses of Congress and another controls the presidency,

Starting point is 00:10:19 it would be theoretically possible for Congress to remove both the President and Vice President, and in effect have a legal coup d'etat. Likewise, the president pro tempore of the Senate is really just an honorary position, and the holder is usually in their 80s or 90s. Senator Strom Thurman once held a position when he was 98 years old. Then there's also the issue of if it's even legal to have people from the legislative branch on the succession list due to the separation of powers. This law has never been tested in court, and in the event that it should ever need to be tested, then it would probably be too late. The entire issue of the line of succession beyond the vice presidency is mostly theoretical. The odds of it ever be enacted are vanishingly small. However, it's

Starting point is 00:11:03 necessary to have such a contingency plan in place. If an incident were to occur, it's far better to have a plan in place beforehand than it would be to face the crisis with no direction whatsoever. Everything Everywhere Daily is an Airwave Media podcast. The executive producer is Darcy Adams. The associate producers are Thor Thompson and Peter Bennett. Today's review comes from listener Gibbers in South Carolina over on Apple Podcasts in the United States. They write, Wow, what a great way to learn. Loving this podcast, Gary's choice of topics and his approach to presenting them is brilliant. Having so much fun learning all sorts of things. Also, very humbling in that having a graduate degree, traveled a good bit, not as close to Gary, and working at a

Starting point is 00:11:50 National Lab, I have always considered myself well-learned. However, at 61, discovering I have so much left to learn and really know very little. What fun. Thanksgivers, you have figured out something that more people need to know, and that is, learning never ends. Too many people think that once you're done with school, your time of learning is over. Actually, it's only just beginning. The big difference is that now you're on your own, and that stage of learning will continue for your entire life. Remember, if you leave a review or send me a boostagram, you too can have it read on the show.

Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Presidential Line of Succession

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