Then Dick drops dead.
Who’s next?
Then who comes after that?
After that?
Etc.?
Just how many people are in line to inherit the Presidency and who decided that it should go in whatever order it happens to go in?
The Presidential Order of Sucession
If all the people there die, the remaining House members can name anybody Speaker (The Speaker of the House officially does not have to be a member). It’s near impossible that all members of the House die since they so rarely are all in one place. Even on most roll-call votes there are those with personal matters to tend to and the such. If all the Cabinet members and House members and Senate members (The President Pro Tempore can be any Senator) are killed, we move to Officially Screwed status.
I wonder why the line of succession wasn’t modified during the cold war? After all, the reason it was only enumerated down to where it was was because it was unthinkable that so many politicians would be killed at once. But with nuclear war, it could happen.
What if a 1 megaton thermonuclear device goes off in Washington when all of the people in the line of succession happen to be there? Do the states just gather and convene a new Congress and elect a new president? Are there any arrangements for an interim government?
We’ve discussed this here and here. Senators are appointed by governors when vacancies exist, and if an amendment by Congressman Brian Baird (D-WA03) is passed House members will be appointed by govs if more than 200 or so die.
Let’s just hope we never have to find out how the Secretary of Veterans Affairs will do in the job.
May I suggest reading the 25th Amendment? from 1967?
Always a good trivia stumper: Who was vice president of the United States between 1945 and 1949? Answer: no one. Vice president Harry Truman had been elevated to the presidency upon FDR’s death, and until the 25th Amendment was ratified in 1967, no provision existed to replace a vice president.
This also goes for part of 1973 (IIRC Gerald Ford’s ascent hadn’t been immediate and Carl Albert was briefly next in line, but I’m not entirely sure), 1963-1965, 1921-1923, 1901-1905, 1881-1885, 1865-1869, 1850-1853 and 1841-1845. It’s interesting to look at who was next in line during those eras. 1865-1869 is the most striking because it was Senate President Pro Tem Benjamin Wade, who was presiding over conviction hearings in the Senate for Andrew Johnson. It was this conflict of interest that led to the Secretary of State being put behind the VP in the order until Truman’s administration. Truman didn’t like the fact that his Secretary of State was a man who had never held public office, so he changed it to the Speaker because he was elected by a vote of representatives from everyone in America ('cept for DC).
True. Several VP’s have become president, but served without a VP of their own.
More trivia: since the 25[sup]th[/sup] Amendment became radified, no presidents have died in office. However, it has been used twice to fill the VP slot: once when Agnew resigned and Ford was nominated to fill it, and again when Nixon resigned, Ford became prez and Nelson Rockefeller became VP.
If you want major disasters, you needn’t contemplate nuclear war. U.E. Baughman was Chief of the Secret Service from 1948 until he retired in 1961. The opening chapter of his memoirs (Secret Service Chief, 1961, written with Leonard Wallace Robinson) describes the security at the Kennedy inauguration, and the nail-biting tension when one of the many television and radio cables strung under the platform started to smoke. Baughman describes the platform as being made entirely of wood and with only one exit: a narrow passage leading back into the Capitol building. If the thing had caught fire and panic ensued, at risk would be “the Presidents’ wives and families, members of the Supreme Court, the Diplomatic Corps and Kennedy’s Cabinet, the two Vice Presidents, ranking members of the both Houses…”
Baughman writes he seriously considered ordering the platform cleared, but didn’t want to start a panic so he stood there quietly while Service agents hunted for the burning cable. One of them managed to yank it, but this is just one of the ulcer-building episodes the Secret Service faces all the time. Assuming a major fire had occured and the Speaker of the House and President Pro Tem of the Senate were killed, along with Kennedy, Johnson and the cabinet… well, it would be time for some serious Congressional leadership.
One of the more amusing anectdotes in Baughman’s book describes Harry Truman’s first day as President. The White House detail had gotten used to the wheelchair-bound FDR and was caught off guard when the energetic Truman took off for one of his pre-breakfast walks. It caused a major freakout when the message came announcing the President was out of the White House accompanied by only one Service agent.