I’m sure this question tells way too much about how my mind works, but what the heck…
Late on Monday, Barack Obama has an attack of appendicitis and is hospitalized, so he can’t make it to the inauguration on Tuesday. Does Bush remain president till Obama can be sworn in? Is Biden sworn in and acts as president till Obama can be sworn? A comic third option?
Sorta related - if one party’s nominee dies part way through the campaign, what happens? How about if the Prez-elect dies between the election and the inauguration?
Please don’t tell the Secret Service I’m asking this stuff. It’s just idle curiousity…
I can’t cite this, but I’m pretty sure the Chief Justice would go to the hospital and swear Obama in there. As long as he is mentally alert enough to take the oath, the process would happen on schedule, just not with the full pomp and circumstance.
At this point, the electoral votes have been counted and certified. If Obama were incapable of fulfilling the duties of president (by taking the oath) the job would fall to Biden.
If a major party nominee falls ill or dies during the campaign, it is up to the party to decide how to replace him/her. The whole process of chosing a candidate is up to the party anyway, the primary elections are just the current way of doing it.
He becomes President at the appointed time, whether he takes the oath or not.
The Constitution only requires that he take the oath “Before he enter on the execution of his office”
Constitutional scholars are divided about whether this means he can’t give any orders until he takes the oath, or whether it’s essentially meaningless.
To be safe, nobody would suggest the new President take any kind of executive action until he has taken the oath, but it doesn’t have to happen in a particularly timely manner.
Zachary Taylor provides a president, … err …precedent. He refused to take the oath of office on a Sunday, insisting that it wait until Monday. Constitutional scholars have pretty much concurred that he became president on Sunday, March 4, 1849 anyway, oath or no oath. It does provide an entertaining urban legend that David Rice Atchison was president for one day and slept through his entire term of office.
Or any other individual qualified to administer oaths. The Chief Justice traditionally does so, but there’s no requirement that he does so. Hence, if time is an issue, they’ll get the oath administered quickly by whoever’s around, then deal with the question of ceremony later.
Coolidge was sworn in by his father, a local JP/notary, and LBJ was sworn in by a district court judge from Dallas (who was, according to wikipedia, the only woman ever to administer the oath of office to the president.
Suppose Obama was in a prolonged surgical operation at noon on January 20th. Is that considered to render him incapacitated? I know past Presidents have been so considered during surgery.
But who could declare him incapacitated? Obama wouldn’t have been President to make the necessary declaration before going in to surgery. Biden could be sworn in as Vice President but I don’t believe Obama’s cabinet has been confirmed into office (with the exception of Robert Gates) so they couldn’t follow the procedure for calling Obama incapacitated.
So what would they do? Just have Biden act as the President until Obama recovers? Decide that Obama’s cabinet nominees are official enough to act? Have Bush’s cabinet act? Have Biden and Gates act on their own?
Which is particularly silly, since it rests on the assumption that one cannot be President without taking the Oath, and yet Mr. Atchinson never took the oath, either.
Well, Atchison wasn’t actually in the line of succession at that point, either - his term as President Pro Tempore of the Senate had expired the day before. If you want to accept the whole silly idea, James Buchanan was President for the day - he was Polk’s Secretary of State at the time, and his term didn’t formally expire until the new guy was appointed.
I didn’t realize the oath was just a formality and it is primarily a matter of time. Then again, civics and history were never favorite subjects of mine.
Keep in mind that the Polk-Atchison-Taylor situation occurred in 1849. The 20th amendment, which specified that the President’s term of office ended at noon on January 20 wasn’t enacted until 1933 (moving it from the traditional date in March). So it’s arguable what the official beginning and ending of a President’s term of office was before then. Taylor might have automatically become President on March 4 even though he didn’t take the oath until March 5. Polk might have continued his term an extra day until Taylor took the oath to began his term. And Atchison or Buchanon might have legally been President at some point in between Polk and Taylor. (Incoming Vice President Millard Fillmore might also have had a claim if he had taken his oath on March 4. But he followed Taylor’s example and waited until the next day.)
On March 5, Atchison and Fillmore both took their oaths (in that order) before Taylor took his. If Polk’s term had officially ended on March 4 and created a vacancy and the point of the oath taking is taken as the official start of a term, then within a single 24 hour period there were arguably five Presidents: Polk, finishing his term; Buchanon, who became acting President as the highest person on the succession list in office; Atchinson, when he took his oath and moved ahead of Buchanon in the order of succession; Fillmore, when he took his oath and moved ahead of Atchinson; and Taylor, when he finally took his oath. And four of the five were actual Presidents at some point in their lives.
And, don’t VPs usually take their oath first leaving the Pres to take his as the “grand finale”? Using that logic, then almost all VPs could say they were President for six or seven minutes waiting for the President to take his oath…
The problem with my theoretical series of Presidents is that it’s based on the premise that Taylor didn’t become President until he took the oath - and if that’s the case than Buchanon, Atchinson, and Fillmore were no more President than Taylor was.
I actually researched this subject years ago. From my manuscript:
Such “gaps” between the end of one term and the subsequent oath taking of a president are not rare. Some others: March 4-5, 1821 (Monroe/Monroe); April 4-6, 1841 (Harrison/Tyler); July 9-10, 1850 (Taylor/Fillmore); September 19-20, 1881 (Garfield/Arthur); August 2-3, 1923 (Harding/Coolidge).
Whether a presidential term ended at midnight or noon was not addressed by the law until the Twentieth Amendment in 1933 (which also moved the first day of a presidential term to January 20). Outgoing Presidents Theodore Roosevelt (1909), William Taft (1913), Woodrow Wilson (1921), and Herbert Hoover (1933) all executed presidential acts on a March 4, the only examples I have found prior to the Twentieth Amendment.
Opinion only, but founded on the Constitutional text: As regard the Taylor situation, on the presumption that the March 4 switchover provision (similar in wording) works identically to the post-Amendment XX January 20 provision, Taylor would have been President de jure from the stroke of noon March 4, but would (on the presumption that the provision regarding taking the oath before entering on his duties has actual legal significance in the conveying of Presidential power, Buchanan (as the holdover Secretary of State) would have been Acting President, empowered to act in case of emergency until Taylor qualified by executing the oath. (Distinguish this from Tyler “acting as President” by succeeding to the office when Harrison died – Acting President would be an interim function until the elected President qualifies himself by the constitutionally prescribed method.) Since this is simply defining who would exercise Presidential power in the unlikely event of an emergency arising during a 24-hour period, the few minutes during which Atchison and Fillmore would be the appropriate Acting Presidents in sequence may be disregarded – what would have happened in case of emergency is to break with protocol and precedent an immediately swear in the new President to empower him to act.
What about when VPs have taken over for an interem period like Bush I when Reagan was shot, and Cheney those couple of times that Bush II had a colonoscopy?
Wouldn’t Cheney have as much right to say he was President for a period of time, in fact more so, than Atchison?
Reagan, with an eye to the precedents they’d be setting, officially named GHWB as Acting President under the 25th Amendment when he went in for surgery (not when he was shot). AFAIK, (GW) Bush did not (and was he even under a general anaesthetic for those 'scopies?) – I presume the idea was, if they even thought of it, that he could be roused in case of emergency, and that there was adequate ‘doctrine’ (in the military sense) to begin the proper reaction to the emergency while he’s being roused and briefed.
I nominate myself for a GQ Moderators’ Award for manfully resisting the temptations for political humor in that response.
I’m pretty sure that Bush transferred power to Cheney. I don’t have a cite, but I remember that they would announce the night before that such a transfer would take place, but wouldn’t announce the exact time for security purposes.
They would only announce that it happened after power had been transferred back to Bush. I guess I should research it…