If, God forbid, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris die before a new speaker is elected by the House, who is President of the United States? Speaker pro tempore Patrick McHenry or Senate president pro tempore Patty Murray?
Here’s the law:
This may also be relevant:
Patty Murray. Patrick McHenry is explicitly not the Speaker of the House, but rather the Speaker pro tem. Even if he exercises some of the powers of a Speaker.
I think (2)(b) says it “If … there is no Speaker” McHenry is not the Speaker and so Patty Murray is next.
The last two replies make sense to me. However, I’m also thinking that if the House and Senate pro tempores were of different parties, as now, they would both claim the presidency, making for a legitimacy crisis.
An additional point is that when Truman asked that the order of succession be changed, he wanted to have the Speaker second in line because the Speaker had the democratic legitimacy of having been elected by the House.
The new guy is there because he got picked, in secret, by McCarthy. That doesn’t match the purpose of having the Speaker come after the Veep.
As with many questions about our government, nobody thought to write down a precise answer. Nor was there ever an urgent need for one before. Or now, for that matter.
From what I’m seeing online, most ordinary experts say that the Speaker Pro Tem is not in the line of succession. But of course somebody out there certainly has a different take on it, probably because that’s the way you get into a law journal.
Patty Murray is just a pup, literally one day older than I am. She has a lot of good years left in her. I can see her taking out Biden and Harris and becoming president, then winning the next election.
Well, in a novel I could see her doing that. Probably not in real life.
The President Pro Tem of the Senate is not in the same position in the succession as the President of the Senate. I see no reason why the Speaker Pro Tem of the House would be in the same position as the Speaker of the House.