Presidential Succession Should Assure Party Continuity

Newswise — Presidential Succession Should Assure Party Continuity

John R. Vile

Recognizing that all humans are mortal, the American Founders wisely provided for an immediate successor for the U.S. President, a unitary executive who is both head of government and head of state.

Accordingly, Article II, Section 1, paragraph 6of the U.S. Constitution wisely provides that the vice president shall become president in the case of “the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office.” The same paragraph further provides that “the Congress may by Law provide for Case of the Removal, Death, Resignation or inability, both of the President and Vice President, declaring what Officer shall then act as President.”

The 25th Amendment later made more explicit provisions for cases of presidential disability and for replacing vice presidents who died. After both Spiro Agnew resigned as vice president and Richard Nixon as president, Gerald Ford, whom Nixon had nominated and Congress had approved to replace Agnew, thus became president when he succeeded Nixon in 1974.

In accordance with Article II, Section 1, in 1792, Congress specified that the president pro tempore of the Senate and the speaker of the House of Representatives should be next in line to the presidency, in the case where both the president and vice president offices were vacant. This left open the possibility that fate, or an assassin, could shift the political affiliation of the presidency without an intervening election. 

In 1886, Congress revised the law to provide that the heads of the executive departments, beginning with the secretary of state and the secretary of the treasury, would be next in line. This solved one problem while creating another. Although prominent members of the cabinet would almost certainly be members of the outgoing president’s party, they were not elected officials, somewhat undermining presidential claims to be a representative institution.

Largely at the insistence of President Harry Truman, who thought the president should be an elected official, Congress altered the law in 1947 to place the speaker of the House and the speaker pro tempore of the Senate next in line for the office. This alteration reintroduced the problem that a simultaneous vacancy in the presidency and vice-presidency could result in the transition of the executive branch from one political party to another, other than through an election.

In a time of party division like the present, it would be especially traumatizing for the loss of a president and vice president to be followed by a transfer of power to a rival party. Imagine moving without an intervening election from Republican President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence to Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi, or from Democratic President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Steve Scalise, Jim Jordan, or whoever is selected to fill the current vacancy. Moreover, while the House speaker is at least a very visible figure, the Senate pro tempore (I doubt that many readers could identify Patty Murray, the current occupant and first woman ever to hold the job) is typically chosen on the basis of years of service rather than fitness.

There is a relatively simple congressional fix. Congress should change the current law to specify that the line of succession go from the vice president to the leader of the president’s party in the House whether this is the speaker of the House or the House minority leader. Similarly, if a senator is to be kept in the line of succession, the senator should be the leading member of the Senate (the Senate majority or minority leader) of the president’s party.

At a time of partisan division, keeping the presidency in the hands of the same party between presidential elections should be something on which members of both major parties should be able to agree.

John R. Vile is a professor of political science and author of the “Encyclopedia of Constitutional Amendments, Proposed Amendments, and Amending Issues, 1789-2023,” which has just been published in its fifth edition.