Know what I fear? An Executive declaration providing a new heirarchy

[peacetalksforall]

for ascending to the role of President.

With all the secret, behind-the-scenes, work-arounds that have been revealed to us in the last couple of weeks, would anyone be surprised if the Constitution has been trashed by PNAC to change the order of ascendency?

As it is now - (if I understand it correctly) -

If somethng happens to Cheney, George gets his pick a replacement.
If something happens to George and Dick, Hastert becomes President.
If something happens to George, Dick, and Hastert, Pelosi becomes President.

About two years ago - the PNAC WH floated the idea of changing the Constitution to allow the P and VP (and Speaker?) to be selected from the Cabinet in the event of vacancies in the P, VP, and Speaker positions.

As has been tossed around on DU previously - if the take-down of B-J leads to the departures of George and Dick and if the Abramoff scandal leads to Hastert stepping down, could we be vulnerable to a secretly filed order that George has signed and sealed (just in case)?

It would now exclude Card, but it could include Rice.

Is this far fetched? They have already gone around the Constitution and other laws.

[cdsilv]

1. I thought after the speaker, it was president pro-tempore of the senate?

n/t

[regnaD kciN]

8. (Deleted Message)

Someone already listed the full succession.

[salin]

2. I thought the Sec of State came after the president... "Alexander Haig"

;-) "I am in charge" (after Reagan was shot).

[Lars39]

3. The contingency plan is that whoever makes it into chambers

after a major disaster or emergency will be our government. Cheery, isn't it?

[Minnesota Libra]

4. With all the behind the scenes wrangling in other areas it wouldn't.......

....surprise me in the least if Dicky and WH Idiot haven't already gone around the Constitution to set up a new succession of their choosing.

[onenote]

11. Presidential succession is not in the Constitution

other than the VP succeeding the Pres. If you're going to claim that the Constitution is being trashed, at least find a provision thats actually in the Constitution.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0101032.html

[Minnesota Libra]

14. Wow, usually at DU the Liberals/Democrats are...............

....a tad kinder when correcting someone. A sarcastic know-it-all attitude is not very becoming on you or anyone else. :argh:

[peacetalksforall]

5. Whatever the sequence - the question is - do you think he has signed

anything that would circumvent the Constitution in order to maintain a PNAC World for the greater profits of a few and to push forth the 'agenda' as we've come to know it? An agenda planned in the 90's requiring election thefts? An administration run on Executive power?

[mcscajun]

6. Order of Presidential Succession

* The Vice President Richard Cheney
* Speaker of the House John Dennis Hastert
* President pro tempore of the Senate Ted Stevens
* Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
* Secretary of the Treasury John Snow
* Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld
* Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
ineligible: Lynn Scarlett, Acting Secretary of the Interior (Acting officers are not in the line of succession.)
* Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns
ineligible: Carlos Gutierrez, Secretary of Commerce (not a natural-born citizen of the U.S.)
ineligible: Elaine Chao, Secretary of Labor (not a natural-born citizen of the U.S.)
* Secretary of Health and Human Services Mike Leavitt
* Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Alphonso Jackson
* Secretary of Transportation Norman Yoshio Mineta
* Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman
* Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings
* Secretary of Veterans Affairs Jim Nicholson
* Secretary of Homeland Security (*) Michael Chertoff


NOTE: An official cannot succeed to the Presidency unless that person meets the Constitutional requirements.

* In late July 2005, the Senate passed a bill moving the Homeland Security secretary to number 8 on the list. The bill is awaiting House approval.

[peacetalksforall]

7. I don't think this is a correct ascendency. You're probably right about

the bill for Chertoff. The list doesn't agree with the sequence as I understood it before George took office. Does your list match the Constitution? If yes, where is Pelosi in your list?

[nickinSTL]

9. the list is right. Pelosi isn't on the list.

She would only be on the list IF the Dems took the House in November and she became Speaker. Then, she would replace Hastert at #3.

This sequence, aside from the Homeland Security secretary, which is new under Bush II, is unchanged from pre-Bush days.

[mcscajun]

16. This list is the correct order. Pelosi has no place in it.

Unless and until she becomes Speaker of the House, which would necessitate the Democrats becoming the Majority party in the House. As the Minority Leader of the United States House of Representatives, she has NO role in the Order of Succession.

The President pro tempore is also elected by the Majority Party, and is generally the most senior Senator of that party.

Perhaps by the end of this year, the House and Senate Democrats will have some significant choices to make. :)

PS: Only the VP succession is in the Constitution: the rest is specified in the Presidential Succession Act of 1947 (3 U.S.C. § 19). It establishes the order of succession to the office of President of the United States in the event neither a President nor Vice President is able to "discharge the powers and duties of the office."

[onenote]

10. since you asked, the answer is yes, its far fetched

And since you asked, I for one don't worry at all there some secret order has changed the succession order. Its a totally silly idea.

And by the way, the order of succession is not specified in the Constitution (beyond the specification of the VP as successor to the president). Its statutory and has been changed by Congress on several occasions. http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0101032.html

If you're going to be afraid of the Constitution being trashed, you might start by actually knowing what's in it.

[peacetalksforall]

12. My, my. Why so upset? Why not be upset about the executive

orders and declarations that have already taken place? I have no reason to think they have ceased creating and reversing laws to protect themselves and their agenda.

[rman]

15. The claim is not that some secret order has changed the succession order"

but rather that a Executive declaration will do so.

As far as i know the succession order already has been changed several times in the past (not secretly) - why would it by far fetched to think it can be changed again?

[onenote]

18. no, the claim was that the succession order "has been" changed

by a "secretly filed order". And I don't think its far fetched that the succession order might be changed, as it has been in the past, by a statutory revision. But I do think its far-fetched that there is a "secret" order that has already changed it. Face it, the original post is not well thought out. Why would chimpy change the order now -- No Democrat is in line of succession at present. And where in the current line of succession law would Andy Card -- former chief of staff, and not a cabinet officer -- have become president. I know that some people believe that there are file cabinets full of secret orders undoing this, that, and the other statutory provision. Sorry, I'm not one of them.

[peacetalksforall]

13. Since I mistakenly referred to the Constitution and people are having

a serious problem with that, the thread is side-tracked. So, I withdraw from the thread while I go back to school.

[HamdenRice]

17. More creepy is the recent change in succession at the Pentagon

With the uniformed officers at the Pentagon in open revolt -- or at least as close to open revolt as they can get within their tradition of deference to civilian leadership -- it is curious that last December, Rumsfeld changed the order of succession in the Pentagon, demoting the secretaries of the individual armed services and replacing them with neo-con civilians.

The main thing to keep in mind about any order of succession is that it only operates in a "doomsday" scenario. Whether we are talking about succession to the presidency or control of the Pentagon, succession would only happen in the even of a catastrophe, such as a successful decapitating military strike against Washington or some sort of coup d'etat. Other than that, it is purely symbolic, because in fact, neither order of succession has ever been used, except of course the replacement of the president with a vice president.

In the past, the order of succession was Secretary of Defense, Deputy Secretary of Defense, and then the Secretaries of the services -- Army, Air Force and Navy. Order of succession is different and separate from the chain of command.

Rumsfeld bumped the secretaries of the services down and replaced them with his trusted aides, the undersecretaries for policy, then for intelligence, then for acquisition.

Is Donald Rumsfeld worried about a coup?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/29/AR2005122901242.html