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United States presidential line of succession
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== Contemporary issues and concerns == In 2003, the [[Continuity of Government Commission]] suggested that the succession law has "at least seven significant issues ... that warrant attention", specifically: # The reality that all figures in the line of succession work and reside in the vicinity of Washington, D.C. In the event of a disaster such as a nuclear, chemical, or biological attack, it is possible that everyone on the list would be killed or incapacitated. For this concern, one of the listed people is selected as "[[designated survivor]]" and stays at an undisclosed secure location during certain events where all others are present, such as the [[State of the Union]] address. # Doubt that the speaker of the House and the president pro tempore of the Senate are constitutionally eligible to act as president. # A concern about the wisdom of including the president pro tempore in the line of succession as the "largely honorific post traditionally held by the longest-serving senator of the majority party". For example, from January 20, 2001, to June 6, 2001, the president pro tempore was then-98-year-old [[Strom Thurmond]]. # A concern that the line of succession can force the presidency to abruptly switch parties mid-term, as the president, speaker, and the president pro tempore are not necessarily of the same party as each other. # A concern that the succession line is ordered by the dates of creation of the various executive departments, without regard to the skills or capacities of the persons serving as secretary. # The fact that, should a Cabinet member begin to act as president, the law allows the House to elect a new speaker (or the Senate to elect a new president pro tempore), who could in effect remove the Cabinet member and assume the office themselves at any time. # The absence of a provision where a president is disabled and the vice presidency is vacant (for example, if an assassination attempt simultaneously wounded the president and killed the vice president).<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.continuityofgovernment.org/pdfs/FirstReport.pdf | title=The Continuity of Congress: The First Report of the Continuity of Government Commission | series=Preserving Our Institutions | page=4 | publisher=Continuity of Government Commission | location=Washington, D.C. | date=May 2003 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080625015852/http://www.continuityofgovernment.org/pdfs/FirstReport.pdf | archive-date=June 25, 2008 |url-status = dead| access-date=December 28, 2008 | via=Internet Archive}}</ref> In 2009, the Continuity of Government Commission commented on the use of the term "Officer" in the 1947 statute, {{blockquote|The language in the current Presidential Succession Act is less clear than that of the 1886 Act with respect to Senate confirmation. The 1886 Act refers to "such officers as shall have been appointed by the advice and consent of the Senate to the office therein named β¦" The current act merely refers to "officers appointed, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate." Read literally, this means that the current act allows for acting secretaries to be in the line of succession as long as they are confirmed by the Senate for a post (even for example, the second or third in command within a department). It is common for a second in command to become acting secretary when the secretary leaves office. Though there is some dispute over this provision, the language clearly permits acting secretaries to be placed in the line of succession. (We have spoken to acting secretaries who told us they had been placed in the line of succession.)<ref>{{cite web | title=The Continuity of the Presidency: The Second Report of the Continuity of Government Commission | url=http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/rc/reports/2009/06_continuity_of_government/06_continuity_of_government.pdf | series=Preserving Our Institutions | page=34 | publisher=Continuity of Government Commission | location=Washington, D.C. | date=June 2009 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304060729/http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/reports/2009/7/06%20continuity%20of%20government/06_continuity_of_government.pdf | archive-date=March 4, 2016 |url-status = dead| via=WebCite | access-date=May 23, 2012}}</ref>}} In 2016β2017, the Second [[Fordham University School of Law]] Clinic on Presidential Succession developed a series of proposals to "resolve succession issues that have received little attention from scholars and commissions" over the past several decades; its recommendations included: * Removing legislators and several Cabinet members from the line of succession and adding four officials, or "Standing Successors", outside of Washington, D.C. The line of succession would be: {{Nowrap|{{ordinal|1}}β}}Secretary of State, {{Nowrap|{{ordinal|2}}β}}Secretary of Defense, {{Nowrap|{{ordinal|3}}β}}Attorney General, {{Nowrap|{{ordinal|4}}β}}Secretary of Homeland Security, {{Nowrap|{{ordinal|5}}β}}Secretary of the Treasury, {{Nowrap|{{ordinal|6}}β}}Standing {{Nowrap|Successor 1,}} {{Nowrap|{{ordinal|7}}β}}Standing {{Nowrap|Successor 2,}} {{Nowrap|{{ordinal|8}}β}}Standing {{Nowrap|Successor 3,}} and {{Nowrap|{{ordinal|9}}β}}Standing {{Nowrap|Successor 4;}} * If legislators are not removed from the line of succession, only designate them as successors in cases where the president dies or resigns, not where he is disabled (to protect legislators from being forced to resign to act as president temporarily) or removed from office; * Eliminate the "bumping provision" in the Succession Act of 1947; * Clarify the ambiguity in the Succession Act of 1947 as to whether acting Cabinet secretaries are in the line of succession; * That the outgoing president nominate and the Senate confirm some of the incoming president's Cabinet secretaries prior to Inauguration Day, which is a particular point of vulnerability for the line of succession; * Establish statutory procedures for declaring 1) a dual inability of the president and the vice president, including where there is no vice president and 2) a sole inability of the vice president.<ref name=50after25th>{{cite journal | title=Second Fordham University School of Law Clinic on Presidential Succession, Fifty Years After the Twenty-Fifth Amendment: Recommendations for Improving the Presidential Succession System | journal=Fordham Law Review | url=https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5454&context=flr | volume=86 | issue=3 | year=2017 | pages=917β1025 | access-date=June 25, 2018 | archive-date=January 14, 2021 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210114220156/https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5454&context=flr | url-status=live }}</ref>
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