Wait, what are you saying needs a 2/3 vote? The confirmation of a VP to fill a vacnacy? Nope.
In the absence of a Veep, wouldn’t the President Pro Tem play that role?
But the President Pro Tem is already a sitting senator and would have voted.
Ted Stevens, the current President Pro Tem, can vote any time he wants to. Dick Cheney gets to vote only when its 50-50.
Sorry for the slight hijack zagloba, (very interesting OP, BTW)
but what would happen if the POTUS assumed room temperature and the VP indicated he would not serve as Prez, but preferred being VP & presiding over the Senate?
Would the Speaker of the House immediately become POTUS?
Would the VP remain VP? Or seeing that he automatically becomes POTUS does he lose that status? Would his refusal to serve as President count as resigning as President and because he becomes President upon the formers death he would no longer be anything at all (POTUS nor VP)?
And, Goddamnit, Can the POTUS legally carry a gun?
When is Cecil going to honor us with his presence on some of this stuff?
In The Man by Irving Wallace, the president and the speaker are killed in the same accident. (“Zat ceilink vas over 400 years old!”) The vice president says he doesn’t want the job and they have to skip over him. That leaves the president pro tem of the Senate… who happens to be black. Then of course there is a cheap crack about the “White House…”
Wallace published that book in 1964 when there had been no black senators at all for about the past 90 years or so. Edward Brooke wasn’t elected until 1966. Life imitating art? I don’t think so. It was in the cards, and Wallace was quick to catch on that the 1964 Civil Rights Act would be followed by Voting Act in 1965, which would soon lead to black candidates winning elections. It was an astute prediction, but still kind of an obvious one in hindsight.
Minor observation, almost a semantic nitpick except that it does have real consequences: The Vice President cannot “decline the Presidency.” He is the President, the moment the late President becomes brain-dead (no bad political jokes, please! :rolleyes: ). The most he can do is resign from the job if he actually never wanted it.
And a man who wants to serve as V.P., and wins election to the office, but doesn’t want the Presidency, is only slightly less arcane than the issue of what happens if little grey aliens from Zeta Reticuli invade and shoot death rays killing the President, V.P., the Speaker of the House, the President Pro Tem of the Senate, and all Cabinet members except the newly appointed first Secretary of Environmental Affairs, which the Presidential Succession Bill has not been amended to include. On January 20 exactly halfway through a term, to make it a trifle more complex.
An interesting variation on the OP; when does the President become President? Suppose some bizarre scenario existed where a popular Presidential candidate was just a front man for a controversial Vice Presidential candidate. The ticket gets elected because most people figure the VP position isn’t that important. Then after the electoral college makes everything official but before the inauguration, the incoming President announces he has decided he doesn’t want to serve as President and will not take the oath of office when the current President’s terms ends. Does the VP candidate automatically become President or does the original candidate have to assume his elected office and then resign for it to be official?
In the book, the Vice President had died in office a few months before. This was before the Constitution had been amended to allow a new VP to take office so the post was vacant when the President and Speaker died.
Another bizarre scenario. If the Presidential succession is automatic, could a President and Vice President use it to force a Speaker of the House out of office? Suppose Clinton and Gore had decided to announce they were temporarily incapable of carying out their duties and stepped down with the Cabinet’s approval. Gingrich would have been forced to resign as Speaker and assume the Presidency. Then a few hours later, Clinton and Gore would announce they were feeling better and were resuming their offices. They would go back with the Cabinet’s approval but Gingrich would still be out of his previous office.
Would he have been forced to resign? What if he refused? You could logically say that he would not become president and the job would go to the next person in line.
Zev Steinhardt
Others have argued that you can’t refuse - that if you’re the next eligible person in line to become President it’s automatic. Admittedly this may only be true for Vice President, but I can’t see any legal principle saying that the Vice President is mandated to become President but the Speaker of the House isn’t.
If a President and Vice-President used that gambit to get a recalcitrant Speaker of the House out of the way, they would have to hope that the Representative wasn’t very popular in his own district. Once the Speaker resigns, the district becomes vacant. There is nothing to keep him running for the office again. And there is nothing that would prevent his party from reelecting the Rep as Speaker once everything was sorted out.
Then the impeachment hearings would start …
Yeah, my bad, I was describing the 1972 movie version of The Man, in which the VP had gotten a stroke after taking office and decided he wasn’t up to it. Maybe because the movie was made after the passage of the 25th amendment in 1967, which affected the plot. They even had someone in the movie who had forgotten about the amendment and needed to be reminded what it said.
There is such a distinction, and it goes back to silenus’s point:
The 25th amendment provides that “in case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President,” with no condition precedent to the automatic succession. But the Presidential Succession Act provides for succession only upon the successor’s resignation from the office or offices by virtue of which he or she succeeds to the Presidency. A statutory successor (as opposed to the Vice President, whose succession is constitutional rather than statutory) can refuse to resign and thereby “fail to qualify as Acting President,” a situation for which the Succession Act provides.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure nothing short of an act of God can FORCE a sitting Representative or Senator to leave his post (barring impeachment for malfeasance or whatnot). So while the Vice President is automatically President when the sitting President is declared dead (it’s pretty much 90% of why the job exists, after all) the Speaker of the House can say ‘Meessa no wansta give up meessa seata’ and stay in place.
Minor nitpick:
Representatives and Senators cannot be impeached. They can, however, be expelled by 2/3 of the House or Senate (whichever they belong to).
Of course, a sitting Rep or Senator can also be forced out of his seat by the end of his or her term. 
Zev Steinhardt
But if the office of vice-president was vacant, wouldn’t Stevens have to act as Pro Tem? I find it unlikely that the Senate could take a vote without a presiding officer present.
A question, which must have come up at some time before Amendment XXV was passed:
What happens if the Vice Presidency is vacant and, with the President Pro Tem voting in his capacity as Senior Senator from Hizzownstate, the vote comes out 50:50 (or 48:48, or whatever the number of senators was at the time)? Does he get a second, casting vote to break the tie? Or does the proposal being voted on stand defeated for lack of a majority?
I just can’t imagine a government in which one individual could hold the offices of senator and president at the same time—even if it could have been done within the letter of the law. I’m glad the situation never came up, because it just seems so wrong. It wouldn’t feel like America to me. Separation of powers is such a bedrock principle of the whole setup.
I thought it was a historical curiosity to have a senator in the White House for a few weeks in January 2001, but she wasn’t pres.