I’ve noticed something in the last little while, occasionally in diaries, but more often in comments to diaries that has confused me. This is nothing new, on my birth certificate, next to “State” it says “confusion”. The reason for my confusion is something I remembered from long ago.
The source of my confusion is the talk of the Presidential line of succession if Trump gets impeached or takes a suckers run from the job. People keep saying Pence will be President, which is true, but then some people have Ryan climbing the ladder to Veep. This didn’t seem to be right to me.
The line of succession is very specific, but it also deals with immediacy. The best example I can think of for the use of the succession clause of the Constitution clause would be the Tom Clancy novel where a delusional JAL pilot crashes a 747 into the capitol building during a joint session of congress. This is why ONE roving cabinet member is a planned no show at every joint session, so that there will be at least one survivor to become President.
The reason that this didn’t seem right to me was past history. When Nixon resigned to end his role in Watergate, Gerald Ford became Vice president. But ford never ran with Nixon to be elected. Ford became Vice president because then VP Spiro Agnew had to step down amidst his own scandal. But Ford was not the Speaker of the House, he was the senior Senator from Michigan. What happened to the line of succession? According to Wikipedia, this is what happened, just as it was written in the Constitution and amended;
The amendment also provides for Vice Presidential succession, by requiring Vice Presidential vacancies to be filled by the President and confirmed by both houses of the Congress.
The most common misapplication that I keep seeing in the comments is that if both Trump and Pence got shitcanned, then Ryan would become President (God forbid). This would be true only under one situation, if Trump and Pence were tried together in impeachment in the Senate, something I’m not even sure that the Constitution allows for. Otherwise, if Trump get impeached, Pence becomes President, and picks a new VP for congress to confirm. If Pence later gets impeached or dies in office, the replacement VP becomes President and appoints someone to be confirmed. For the line of succession to go any further than Mike Pence, it would need to be a near simultaneous event. Trump gets impeached, and then Pence has a heart attack or goes into a coma before he can get a new VP confirmed by congress, some scenario like that. But if Trump goes, by any means, Pence appoints a new VP to be confirmed. If Pence steps down or is impeached before Trump, then Trump names a new VP to be confirmed.
Again, I am by not means a constitutional scholar, hell, I’m not even a third rate lawyer, so if my understanding or interpretation is boneheaded and incorrect, can someone with more knowledge and experience please tutor me so I can learn something new today?