The Senate is the higher legislative body, its members more exclusive, and requires more votes in practice to obtain. Why is the President pro tempore of the Senate not before the Speaker in the succession line? And the Speaker is pretty much, for all intents and purposes, the majority leader of the majority party in the House. Why is the majority leader in the Senate not anywhere in the succession line?
Years ago the Senate Pro Tem was next in line after the VP, this changed in later years, the Pro Tem is after the Speaker now.
One tidbit is that Senate Pro Tem, David Rice Atchison was “President for one day” after Zachary Taylor would not take the oath on a sunday.
The PPT of the Senate is the (actual) majority leader of the Senate.
As for the order of succession, the current order was established by the Succession Act of 1947. It’s said (though I don’t know if it’s ever been proven) that President Truman preferred the Speaker to go first because of his personal dislike for Sen. Kenneth McKellar.
No he wasn’t. Please don’t repeat this idiotic urban legend.
I am not affirming or denying the LEGAL fact, just that it exists.
At the time the law was written, teh Speaker was good buddies with the President.
No, they are 2 different people.
That what exists? Something completely made up that never happened?
That’s why I said “actual.” The PPT is elected by a majority of the Senators and is the senior most member of the chamber. The Senate majority leader is the schmoe that does the actual work.
The logic is perhaps best explained by President Harry Truman himself, who advocated for changing the succession from the Secretary of State to the Speaker shortly after becoming President in 1945:
The Democratic-majority Congress of 1945-46 ignored their President’s suggestion. After, however, Republicans won majorities in the 1946 election, they were more than happy to adopt Truman’s suggestion and passed the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, making their Speaker next in line.
Not that it mattered. Truman survived that term and the next one besides, and succession became less important after the Twenty-Fifth Amendment provided for replacement vice-presidents.
From Wikipedia;
“President for One Day”
Atchison himself never claimed that he was technically President of the United States for one day—Sunday, March 4, 1849. Outgoing President James Polk’s term ended at noon on March 4, which was a Sunday. His successor, Zachary Taylor, refused to be sworn into office on Sunday.[18] As President pro tempore, and therefore Acting Vice President, under the presidential succession law in place at the time, Atchison was believed by some to be Acting President.[19]
As I stated, I am not affirming or denying the Constitutionality, even if it were subject to decison today.
There is a museum in Ohio dedicated to the 52 Presidents, yes, 52, not including Atchison though, one could call him an urban myth also??
Committee chairmen are also elected by a majority of senators, but they aren’t majority leaders in any meaningful sense of the term.
To believe that the Majority Leader must be chosen by the full Senate to lead (as opposed to being selected by a caucus) is as over-literal as believing that the Speaker of the House must be an official spokesperson and nothing more, simply because of an absurd fixation on the title. (After all, his title is “Speaker,” not “Leader,” right? And there is a Majority Leader in the House, so that must mean that the Majority Leader is in charge and the Speaker is just the mouthpiece, right??)
The truth is that the PPT leads nothing, but does have various important duties.
There’s also a bunch of people who claim that Obama’s presidency is invalid because he was born in Kenya. Just because people believe something doesn’t mean you need to roll in to any thread on current politics just to point out that “some people believe” it even though you are not “affirming or denying the LEGAL fact, just that it exists.” It’s an idiotic myth that Acheson was president for a day. He wasn’t and nobody thought he was. Bush’s term expired at noon on January 20th but Obama didn’t take his oath of office at EXACTLY the stroke of noon. Are you going to argue that Nancy Pelosi was president for a couple minutes?
As Acting Vice President, he could have been sworn in as President.
But until that happened, he wasn’t. Had he been, he’d have been President.
The point was to point about a former Senator Pro Tem, and I will ROLL into any thread I want like I did, don’t like it, complain to a moderator.
This is not a modding issue. Your original post can only be read as you stating a fact. It is not a fact. We - any and all of us - can come down hard on someone posting a non fact as truth in a GQ thread; doubly especially if it’s the first response to the OP. You’re fair game.
So what? Do it!!
I’m just curious where they get 52 presidents. By my count there are only 44, and one of them is getting counted twice. Are they including the pre constitution ones?
This may be of some use, Bryan Ekers, John Hanson, American Patriot and First President of the United States
(1715-1783)
The David Rice Atchison thing is a bit of history, he wasn’t actually president, but he is known for being President for a Day. A little clarification is all that’s needed here, and that clarification would be more useful than just jumping on the post and calling it false.
So what happens if you’re president for a day and somebody feeds you after midnight?