Action By Others As President Under The Presidential Succession Act
Congress, acting under the powers conferred upon it by Article II, section 1 of the United States Constitution, and by section 3 of the 20th Amendment, has provided for cases where neither a President nor Vice President is able to discharge the powers and duties of the office of President via the Presidential Succession Act (officially styled "An Act to provide for the performance of the duties of the office of President in case of the removal, resignation, death, or inability both of the President and Vice President").
The constitutional delegation of authority that enabled Congress to enact the Presidential Succession Act is twofold: the authority of Congress to regulate cases when neither a President-elect, nor a Vice President-elect have qualified, determining who shall act as President in that specific situation stems from section 3 of the 20th Amendment. On the other hand, the power of the Legislature to determine who shall act as President in the cases of removal, resignation, death, or inability both of the President and Vice President is provided for in article Article II, section 1, clause 6, of the Constitution. Congress has chosen to regulate both situations by the same statute, and the Presidential Succession Act it passed in 1947 deals with both cases.
The Presidential Succession Act of 1947 is not the first statute to have been enacted by Congress under the above mentioned constitutional provisions. Before the enactment of the current statute previous Acts of Congress (the Presidential Succession Acts of 1792 and 1886) dealt with the hypothesis of there being neither a President nor a Vice President able to discharge the powers of the presidency.
Apart from the circumstances regulated by sections 3 and 4 of the 25th Amendment, the provisions of the Presidential Succession Act of 1947 regulate the only other scenarios in which the office of acting president would come into existence.
While none of these officers would succeed to the presidency as would a Vice President, the provisions of the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, now codified in Title 3, Chapter 1, section 19 of the United States Code, create a line of succession that allows the Speaker of the House, the President pro tempore of the Senate, and Cabinet officers, to serve as acting president in the case of removal, resignation, death or inability of both the President and Vice President, and also in the case of failure to qualify of both a President-elect and a Vice President-elect. The following is the currently established line of succession after the President and the Vice President:
- Speaker of the House of Representatives
- President pro tempore of the Senate
- Secretary of State
- Secretary of the Treasury
- Secretary of Defense
- Attorney General
- Secretary of the Interior
- Secretary of Agriculture
- Secretary of Commerce
- Secretary of Labor
- Secretary of Health and Human Services
- Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
- Secretary of Transportation
- Secretary of Energy
- Secretary of Education
- Secretary of Veterans Affairs
- Secretary of Homeland Security
The fact that section 2 of the 25th Amendment allows a President to nominate a new Vice President whenever a vacancy occurs in that office, while not directly impacting the Presidential Succession Act, has greatly diminished the potential for its coming into operation. Indeed, since the office of Vice President, once vacant, no longer remains vacant until the end of the presidential term, but is now filled by presidential nomination confirmed by Congress, the likelihood of there ever being a time when there is simultaneously neither a President nor a Vice President able to discharge the powers and duties of the presidency has greatly decreased.
To date, no one other than a Vice President has acted as President.
Read more about this topic: Acting President Of The United States
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