Incidentally, months before the 2016 election I speculated on the odds against the next president surviving in office:
William Henry Harrison [1841] Died in office
Zachary Taylor [1849-1850] 9 years after Harrison
Abraham Lincoln [1861-1865] 15 years after Taylor
James A. Garfield [1881] 16 years after Lincoln
William McKinley [1897-1901] 20 years after Garfield
Warren G. Harding [1921-1923] 22 years after McKinley
Franklin D. Roosevelt [1933-1945] 22 years after Harding
John F. Kennedy [1961-1963] 18 years after FDR
William Henry Harrison [1841] Died in office
Zachary Taylor [1849-1850] 9 years after Harrison
Abraham Lincoln [1861-1865] 15 years after Taylor
James A. Garfield [1881] 16 years after Lincoln
William McKinley [1897-1901] 20 years after Garfield
Warren G. Harding [1921-1923] 22 years after McKinley
Franklin D. Roosevelt [1933-1945] 22 years after Harding
John F. Kennedy [1961-1963] 18 years after FDR
https://www.justplainpolitics.com/s...-Stay-Awake-The-Longest&p=3157074#post3157074
Nancy Pelosi is the best argument in favor of removing every member of Congress from the presidential line of succession. She never served another purpose in her misdirected life:
And it’s the right thing to do from a good-government perspective. It’s always been a mistake to insert members of Congress into the presidential line of succession; it’s contrary to the entire structure of the constitutional system, which separates legislative from executive institutions and forces them to share powers.
It also violates the basic partisan arrangements of U.S. elections. Once the political parties evolved, it became essential for the president and vice president to be political allies to guarantee that voters on the winning side of presidential elections would be getting their way, at least in terms of party, even if the president died or needed to be replaced. That wasn’t guaranteed at first by the Constitution, which simply took the candidates with the top two electoral-vote totals and made them president and vice president, and which also had no procedure for filling a vacancy in the vice presidency.
It also violates the basic partisan arrangements of U.S. elections. Once the political parties evolved, it became essential for the president and vice president to be political allies to guarantee that voters on the winning side of presidential elections would be getting their way, at least in terms of party, even if the president died or needed to be replaced. That wasn’t guaranteed at first by the Constitution, which simply took the candidates with the top two electoral-vote totals and made them president and vice president, and which also had no procedure for filling a vacancy in the vice presidency.
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This isn’t just about, or even mainly about, impeachment. The possibility that the deaths or departures of two people could award the presidency to the party that lost the most recent election is an unacceptable risk. The law also sets up a perverse incentive during times of divided government for Congress to play constitutional hardball and refuse to confirm anyone to a vice-presidential vacancy in order to leave the speaker next in line.
Even with members of Congress removed from the line of succession, there’s still one more step needed to get the system right. Under current law, 15 cabinet officers follow the Senate president pro tem, from the secretary of state at the top of the list to the secretary of homeland security at the bottom.
I cannot imagine any Democrat member of Congress voting to scrap the current line of succession that tilts in their favor with their bureaucrats, least of all voting for the good of the country:
After nuclear weapons were born the entire line of succession could be wiped out because they could be found in one city. So years ago I suggested changing the line; replacing the bureaucrats with state governors.
Cabinet secretaries who once held elected positions are no exception when it comes to the line of succession.
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Bureaucrats in the line of succession should be eliminated because nobody votes for them after the first three elected officials; the vice president, the speaker of the house, and the president pro tempore of the Senate.
And have you noticed that liberals scream the loudest about the public’s sacred Right to vote for the people who govern them, yet nobody votes for the bureaucrats that might end up president.
It got worse in 2011
The Presidential Line-of-succession Act of 2011 added ambassadors to the line if the others are wiped out. I looked for a complete list of everybody in the current line and could not find one list that included the ambassadors first proposed by the 109th Congress. I wonder why it is such a secret?
H.R. 1943 and S.920
Those bills were introduced in the 109th Congress (2005-2006). Their provisions included adding the following positions to the the line-of-succession.
Secretary of Homeland Security.
Ambassador to the United Nations. (How does President Suzy Five Shows, President Samantha Power, and President Nikki Haley grab you?)
Ambassador to Great Britain.
Ambassador to Russia.
Ambassador to China.
Ambassador to France.
Parenthetically, think about one of the bureaucrats who joined Hillary Clinton and Obama in betraying this country becoming president:
Hillary Clinton: Uranium One Stories "Debunked Repeatedly"
Posted By Tim Hains
On Date October 23, 2017
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/v..._uranium_one_stories_debunked_repeatedly.html
Hillary does not tell us that decisions must go through the Committee on Foreign Investment which includes executive members of the cabinet, the secretaries of the Treasury, Defense, Homeland Security, Commerce and Energy, and the secretary of state [Hillary Clinton at the time of the sale].
Try this scenario: One of those bureaucrats in the line-of-succession who sold Uranium One to Russia becomes president after a nuclear bomb made from our own uranium destroys Washington.
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Finally, in 2016 my wife and daughter were talking about a TV show they were following. I learned that a variation of my nuclear scenario was the plot in a TV show called DESIGNATED SURVIVOR.
In the TV show the Capital Building is destroyed while the president is delivering a State of the Union Address opening the door for a low level bureaucrat to become president. I do not know who paid to produce that crapola, but they owe me a few bucks for stealing my idea.
https://www.justplainpolitics.com/s...te-Of-The-Union-Address&p=2830747#post2830747
The Continuity in Government Commission’s recommendation lost me:
As the Continuity in Government Commission recommended after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, only the four most important cabinet posts should be included. After that, the president should designate, and Congress confirm, a handful of distinguished individuals, preferably living anywhere but Washington, D.C., to serve in case of a full-blown disaster. Retired high-ranking politicians, former secretaries of state or defense, or former White House chiefs of staff would be natural choices. Instead of a “designated survivor” who might be unknown to the nation and whose service in a lesser cabinet post might be poor preparation for the White House, such a scheme would provide more reliable leadership in the unlikely event it was ever needed.
Oust Pelosi From the Presidential Succession Line
Jonathan Bernstein
October 04, 2019
https://outline.com/4FrnUG
I will stick with my original suggestion:
. . . years ago I suggested changing the line; replacing the bureaucrats with state governors.
