I’m inclined to agree with Sens. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) on extremely rare occasions, but I happen to like their proposal to alter the current line of presidential succession. I know; I can’t believe it either.
Lott and Cornyn are arguing that the current line suffers from serious flaws, most notably including members of Congress in the line at all. (I should note that this is not purely a Republican idea; good ol’ fashioned liberal senators like Christopher Dodd and Russ Feingold have expressed support for this approach as well.)
Right now, should tragedy strike, the law has the line going like this: President, VP, Speaker of the House, President Pro Tempore of the Senate, followed by the president’s cabinet, starting with the Secretary of State and going down based on when the cabinet agency was created, ending with the Secretary of Veterans Affairs (and if you know who he is without looking it up, you’re better informed than I am).
The Lott/Cornyn proposal believes the party in control of the executive branch should stay in control. While partisanship would certainly seem like a distant concern in a time of such an incredible calamity, I’m inclined to agree with the sentiment.
Looking back at the last administration, for example, if something terrible were to have happened to Clinton and Gore, Newt Gingrich could have been president. If Newt were unable to serve, Strom Thurmond would have been the leader of the free world. Putting aside his character flaws (Thurmond was a racist, misogynist pig), the former Pro Tempore was in no condition to lead the executive branch in a time of crisis. If you’re looking at this from a Republican perspective, note that Robert Byrd was fourth in line for the presidency on Sept. 11, 2001.
Focusing just on the House speaker, however, consider the dramatic change for the administration if Gingrich had assumed the presidency. Clinton and Gore were chosen by over 47 million Americans to lead the nation. Gingrich was chosen by about 250,000 people to represent his House district. To replace Clinton and Gore with Gingrich would mean a radical shift in direction without a mandate. This plan would instead keep the line behind the administration’s own hand-picked cabinet, allowing added continuity.
As Matt Yglesias explained a few months ago:
[I]n the event that the president and vice president were simultaneously killed in a terrorist attack, the last thing the country would need is a dramatic change of direction at the top. Not only would a new president from the other party possibly lack the confidence of the public, the need for large-scale turnover in executive branch personnel could prove highly disruptive at a time when the country could least afford it.
The Lott/Cornyn plan also makes a few reasonable modifications to the existing structure:
* Add the secretary of Homeland Security to the list immediately following the attorney general (created long after the last time presidential succession was modified, the Department of Homeland Security is not currently represented);
* Provide that any Cabinet member serving as acting president remain in the post until a new president is elected or the disability of the president or the vice president is alleviated (eliminating the current law’s “bumping” provision);
* Remove the statutory requirement that a Cabinet officer resign his or her post in order to serve as acting president; and
* Delineate that only already confirmed Cabinet members are eligible, eliminating the possibility of acting secretaries assuming the role of chief executive.
The proposal also identifies a gap in the system: identifying who could lead in case of an attack on inauguration day. Usually, the Senate doesn’t immediately start confirming the president’s cabinet. If the president and vice president were attacked and unable to serve on the very day they’re sworn in, we’re right back to the Gingrich-Thurmond back-up plan.
The Lott/Cornyn plan, as Roll Call explained this week, “would encourage the incoming president and the Senate to ensure that at least some incoming secretaries could assume authority.”
To be sure, the Lott/Cornyn proposal isn’t the only one out there, and others emphasize keeping the presidency in the hands of the elected president’s party, but I prefer taking members of Congress out of the equation altogether.
Lott and Cornyn won’t be formally introducing their legislation until next week, so I haven’t gone through the details, but there’s one other thing I’d change. I’d like to keep the line of succession within the president’s cabinet, but reshuffle the order a little bit.
Right now, taking the House speaker and the Senate Pro Tem out, the order is as follows:
VP
Secretary of State
Secretary of the Treasury
Secretary of Defense
Attorney General
Secretary of the Interior
Secretary of Agriculture
Secretary of Commerce
Secretary of Labor
Secretary of Health and Human Services
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
Secretary of Transportation
Secretary of Energy
Secretary of Education
Secretary of Veterans Affairs
Secretary of Homeland Security
Yes, I know this is based on when the Cabinet agency was established, but that seems like a fairly capricious standard for assuming the presidency in a time of crisis. I’d bump Treasury, Interior, and Agriculture down, and bump Defense, Attorney General, Homeland Security, and HHS up.
There’s just one more gap. If there were a nuclear attack on Washington, the possibility exists that the president and his cabinet would all be killed. Given that, I’ve heard suggestions that the president, while selecting his cabinet, could name certain governors to be in the line of succession in event of such a calamity. So long as the Senate approved of these governors to fill such a role, just as the Senate has to confirm cabinet members, this seems like a reasonable contingency plan.
Whether members of Congress are ultimately included in the line or not, I think it’s clear that steps need to be taken to address existing ambiguities in the system. We can, of course, hope that these plans will never be necessary, but in light of current events, the only responsible thing to do would be to plan ahead, just in case.