Senate Changes Line of Succession

[zimv20]

link (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/26/AR2005072601570_pf.html)


WASHINGTON -- The Senate approved a bill Tuesday to raise the homeland security secretary from last to eighth place in the presidential line of succession, just after the attorney general.

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, passed without objection just before the chamber adjourned. The companion House bill, sponsored by Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., is pending before the Judiciary and Government Reform committees.

If the bill also passes the House, the order of those in line to assume the presidency if President Bush is unable to serve would be:

_Vice President Dick Cheney

_House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill.

_Senate President Pro Tem Ted Stevens, R-Alaska

_Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice

_Treasury Secretary John Snow

_Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld

_Attorney General Alberto Gonzales

_Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff

_Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton

_Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns

_Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez

_Labor Secretary Elaine Chao

_Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt

_Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson

_Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta

_Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman

_Education Secretary Margaret Spellings

_Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson

The Constitution, however, requires that the president be a natural-born citizen, so Gutierrez, born in Cuba, and Chao, born in Taiwan, would be ineligible.

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The bills are S. 442 and H.R. 1455.

[IJ Reilly]

Thankfully we don't live in a monarchy, or we'd be in for some seriously grim decades.

[Sayhey]

I guess theoretically this makes some sense, but it is the names involved that scares one silly. Anyway, if we get down to a choice between Chertoff or Norton we are in deep, deep s... :eek:

[Desertrat]

Forget who's now in any of those jobs: It seems to me that if there is need to reach down beyond fourth place, there would have been some sort of real disaster to hit the country.

For all that I fear the potential for abuse of power by such a thing as a Homeland Security Agency, it seems to me it would be among the most important agencies in a time of some dire emergency.

Could be, of course, that the whole deal is just a logical desire for order in a time of no-choice transition. Reminds me of the deal about mail delivery after a nuclear attack.

'Rat

[Thomas Veil]

That line-up would work better on the wall of the post office, rather than in a presidential line of succession.

[Trowaman]

Move Senate President (Ted "******* ANWR, I want Money" Stevens) down a few and raise Secretary of Defense, Homeland Security, and Attourney general.

However, raising to where Rumsfeld would be put in charge could be worse than a Stevens' administration.

So how many pegs do we have to go until Democrat Norman Mineta is in charge? :p