The Politics of Succession

With it being Presidents' Day today, I figured that it would be appropriate to do something presidential for the rant, but what to do?  I think everyone's tired of hearing whether or not Jeb or Hillary or Marco are running, and I sure as hell am.  So I decided to embrace my inner nerd and address something that, six years later, is still an issue in Washington: the Continuity of Government Commission's report on issues with presidential succession.  You can read the full report if you want (though it's very long), or you can parcel through it like I did.  Below there are six major issues with presidential succession that the organization (created in the wake of 9/11) saw as an issue, and I'm taking a crack at correcting them (sometimes I agree with the Commission, sometimes I don't, but either way it's politically nerdy fun).  Shall we begin?

1. All the Figures in the Line of Succession Live and Work in Washington DC

This is absolutely the biggest issue of the bunch, and an extremely frightening point.  If there were some sort of natural or terrorist disaster that happened in Washington DC, unless some random cabinet secretary was visiting their family in Toledo, we would have a major constitutional crisis in that we wouldn't have a president.  This is something that the Commission spent an enormous amount of time on, and proposed several different ideas to correct.

I personally (because of things I'll hint at below), think that some sort of permanent "Designated Survivor" would be appropriate.  Have a Designated Survivor and a Vice Designated Survivor that is not currently holding office, and is likely a former key member of the executive branch (like a President or a Vice President).  This way, if something catastrophic happened in Washington, someone who was in another state (such as Bill Clinton or George W. Bush) would be ready to go.  The incumbent president would get to choose these individuals, have them appointed through the Senate, and then we wouldn't have to worry about this aspect of terrorist attacks, particularly during major events such as the State of the Union or Inauguration.

2. Congressional Leaders in the Line of Succession

I'll just spell it out-there's no reason for John Boehner or Orrin Hatch should be in line for the presidency.  Neither of these men has ever faced a national election, and in the case of Boehner, only 124,000 people ever voted for him.  Granted, no one votes for the Secretary of Defense either, but at least he or she is appointed by the president.  There's also the added problem that the country voted for a Democrat to hold the White House, and John Boehner and Orrin Hatch would be representing a viewpoint and a party that the entire country didn't support (and for the record, I would have said the same thing when Nancy Pelosi came after Bush and Dick Cheney).  And finally, the President Pro Tempore, by tradition, is one of the oldest senators in the body.  While Sen. Hatch still seems to be relatively active, former Presidents Pro Tempore like Strom Thurmond and Robert Byrd were not remotely capable to succeed to the presidency.  Cutting out congressional leaders from the line of succession ensures the country's will is at least somewhat followed and that we don't end up with a (revered but senile) senator in the White House.

3. The Order of Succession

It's cute for Hollywood action films and Battlestar Galactica, but the reality is that there's no point to having the Secretary of Transportation in line to the presidency.  In a national emergency where the President and Vice President are both unable to perform the task of running the country, you need someone highly-qualified and prepared, so it makes sense to keep the Secretaries of State, Defense, Treasury, and the Attorney General in line, but pretty much everyone else can go back to running their departments without worrying about being president-if all four of those cabinet secretaries are unable to assume the presidency, we move on to the Designated Survivor or Vice Designated Survivor.

4. Acting Secretaries in Line of Succession

I'm against this in general-the acting secretary is doing a great service waiting for Congress to approve the next head of a department, but considering the intense vetting that would go into who heads State, Justice, Defense, and the Treasury, it seems more important for someone who has actually been confirmed for that role by the Senate.

5. Incapacitation

I think with incapacitation, there's a few things to keep in mind.  I think that should the president be incapacitated based on a surgery or medical emergency, the Vice President and the cabinet should be able to vote that the Vice President can (temporarily) take over the country until the president is able to resume the office (this is essentially covered in the Constitution).  If, however, we have to move quite a bit further down the list or we think that no one in the Cabinet is able to assume the presidency, I think that a group of governors, chosen by the president (a 4-3 partisan group, with the majority being from the president's party), should be chosen on the off-hand that it's unclear that the Designated Survivor or Vice Designated Survivor needs to assume the presidency.

6. The Inauguration and Pre-Inauguration Scenarios

After the Number One on this list, this is probably the oddest of scenarios, and it's principally because there is no formal selection process for if a president-elect and a vice president-elect both die before entering office and having any cabinet secretaries poised to be successors.  There are three ways to fix this.  First, if the electoral college has not convened yet, you need a law in place allowing for either the RNC or DNC (whichever was the clear victor, electorally) to be able to choose new candidates without punishing faithless electors (if only one of the winners is still alive, obviously the other winner would get to choose in this situation).  If the electoral college has already convened, the big concern is that cabinet secretaries are still considered in line for the presidency on January 20th at noon, but not the current president or vice president.  Were something to happen to the newly-elected leaders, then the former administration's Secretary of State would assume office (assuming we go with Number 3 on this list).  This of course seems like a terrible idea, so why not do this-mandate all incumbent cabinet secretaries resign at the same time as the president provided that they have not been nominated to the same position by the incoming administration, and since the only reason for the Designated Survivor and Vice Designated Survivor is to have a pulse, have them both approved prior to the inauguration and have one be out of town and you're covered in case of a tragedy.

There you go friends, one of the odder and nerdier articles I've written on this blog, but it's always fun to solve problems that are in the minutia of politics.