I know that this will NEVER happen, but out of curiosity.
If a person has been President for two terms, could he/she run for Vice President?
If yes, and the President died, could the Vice President become acting president, or would that violate the two term rule?
Just curious.
Not so pointless that it doesn’t belong in General Questions.
I’ll move it for you.
Cajun Man - SDMB Moderator
The 12th ammendment ends with the sentence:
The Presidential Succession act also makes it clear that nobody can succeed to the office of the President unless constitutionally qualified, so an unqualified Speaker of the House, for instance, would get skipped over in the event of both the Prez and Veep dying or being incapacitated.
So Bill Clinton could become SecDef or Post Master General, both of which would put him in the line of succession (I think), but if everybody died, he couldn’t become Prez again, even if it was his turn. Is that right? Because I thought he was now disqualified from any job which put him in the line of succession for the Presidency (such as Speaker or Cabinet Secretary). But I haven’t had poli sci yet so if someone could clarify I’d be most appreciative.
Oh, and I’m not trying to argue with yabob, just understand–it seems that high school teacher may have given me wrong information on this subject (which wouldn’t be that big a surprise, really).
Actually, Postmaster General was taken out of the cabinet in 1971. After VP, Speaker, and Pres Pro Tem the 4 cabinet posts in the line of succession are:
Secretary of State
Treasury Secretary
Secretary of Defense
Attorney General
I’m not sure the exact line of succession after that, but the 10 other cabinet-level posts are
Secretary of Agriculture
Secretary of Commerce
Secretary of Education
Secretary of Energy
HHS Secretary
HUD Secretary
Secretary of the Interior
Secretary of Labor
Secretary of Transportation
Veterans Affairs Secretary
I’m pretty sure Veterans Affairs is last among those because it was added last (the late 80s, during Reagan I think). Outside of the Legislative leaders and the Cabinet the line of succession ends. If all are killed at once I believe the state moves to “officially screwed” status.
Yabob’s quote of the 12th Amendment is pretty clear to me.
FWIW, Clinton is eligible for any [ elected | appointed ] federal job, except the Presidency and the Vice-Presidency. In the case of a Cabinet Secretary position, no matter what the line of succession, Clinton is ineligible for either the VP or Prez position.
What part do you not understand? 
I’m not sure that is true. I seem to recall that if all of the members of the Cabinet and the Legislative Leaders were killed, then the line of succession moved to either the House or Senate members, can’t remember which. But if this actually happened, I’m fairly sure that everybody in Congress would be nice and crispy so it would be a moot point.
Please tell me if I’m wrong.
If everyone in the line of succession were crisped, the Federal Government would be little more than a memory anyway (and would have to be ‘reconstituted’ on ground that wouldn’t give you cancer).
(As a side note, if the Federal Government were destroyed I think a few of the Western Territories would have aspirations a bit higher than rejoining the union. Bear Flag Republic, here I come!)
Well, what could happen is the remaining House members (you’d be hard pressed to kill all 435) would be able to name a new Speaker of the House. A little known fact: the Speaker doesn’t have to be a House member. Thus, they could name somebody like Sam Nunn or John Danforth, both elder statesmen respected by both sides of the aisle, Speaker and automatically elevate him to the presidency. One wonders if they’d do this if we were down to VA Secretary or some other low-level partisan hack, creating a large constitutional crisis that would have to be decided by what remained of the Supreme Court. That’s why I think we’d be officially screwed.
Holy crap, I didn’t think my question would generate such conversation. This is great. These posts more than answer my question. Thanks.
IIRC, doesn’t power pass to specific members of Congress, starting with Senate Majority Whip and finally end up with the cleaning boy in the DC Representative’s office?
Not that I have a current copy of the SIOP around, but I thought I rememberd hearing something about this from my one political science class in high school.
Tripler
But yes, DEFCON “Oh Shit” would be declared.
Line of Succession eligibility skips aren’t unimaginable, anyway. The highest-ranked person I can think of who would be ineligible (in recent memory, anyway) is Madelyn Albright, Clinton’s Secretary of State.
I imagine if things got really screwed the several states could call a Constitutional convention under Article V.
Well, I understood all of yabob’s post . . . it just contradicted what that social studies teacher told me once upon a time.
Thought as much. I’m finding many teachers are seriously lacking in their knowledge skills. Their students lose out directly (but they don’t know it) and the rest of us suffer the fallout later.
Yup. Next somebody’s gonna tell me that New York really isn’t the capital of the United States after all . . .
Seriously, though, I had been taught that once you became president that you could no longer get a job anywhere in the “line of succession.”
I agree, we’re really suffering through our teachers’ lack of education . . . although I gotta thank God for a couple of the ones I had.
…who is ineligible due to not being a natural-born U. S. citizen, in case anyone’s wondering.
And before anyone else mentions it, there is a tiny bit of wiggle room in the Constitution (does “can’t be elected President” mean “is ineligible for the Presidency”?) which might conceivably allow for a two-term president to become Veep, but were it ever attempted, the Supreme Court would almost certainly rule against it.
Of course, by the way, under the topic of “officially screwed”, if things ever got bad enough, all we’d have to do would be to start ignoring the Constitution. There’s plenty of precedent: For over two hundred years, we Americans have been completely ignoring the official and lawful authority of the monarch. Official or not, a government is only as significant as the people under it think it is.
OK, I finally went online and found it at http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0101032.html
Here’s the list
The Vice President Richard Cheney
Speaker of the House J. Dennis Hastert
President pro tempore of the Senate Robert Byrd
Secretary of State Colin Powell
Secretary of the Treasury Paul O’Neill
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld
Attorney General John Ashcroft
Secretary of the Interior Gale A. Norton
Secretary of Agriculture Ann M. Veneman
Secretary of Commerce Donald Evans
Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao
Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy G. Thompson
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Mel R. Martinez
Secretary of Transportation Norman Y. Mineta
Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham
Secretary of Education Roderick Paige
Secretary of Veterans Affairs Anthony J. Principi
They’d have to skip either Chao or Martinez (neither was born in the US). They make no mention of Congressional leaders. My guess is that if they managed to wipe out all the Cabinet, the remaining House members would elect a new Speaker (as I said before, it doesn’t have to be a House member). I think what you’re presuming is that they’d automatically make the next highest in power in the House after the Speaker President. Don’t worry, we won’t ever have a President Tom DeLay.
Uh, what monarch? We broke from the UK so we wouldn’t have to put up with King George, a war we won, and I don’t recall any agreements with subsequent royals that said the US would be bound to them. The US Government cannot, legally, grant royal titles, and cannot recognize the titles bestowed on American citizens by foreign powers (I don’t even think a titled man can hold office). So, what group of royal morons have we been giving the cold shoulder?
Big Kahuna, much obliged.
I remembered it was established with the Vice President, Speaker of the House, the President Pro Tempore, and down the Cabinet line from there.
I just couldn’t remember the proper sequence of Cabinet Officers. But I do remember it is according to the date with which each Office was established, earliest to latest.
Tripler
But I still don’t have a copy of the SIOP. :mad: