Talk:Presidential Succession Act

Speaker as "Acting President"?

The article states that had Carl Albert, then Speaker of the House, become President upon the resignation of Richard Nixon, he would have become "acting President". Why is this correct? "Acting President" is a term of art arising from the 25th Amendment and refers to a position filled by the Vice President when the incumbent President is alive but has told the Cabinet that he is temporarily prevented by circumstances from exercising his responsibilities as President or has been determined by a two-thirds majority of the President to be incapable of doing such. There is nothing in the Presidential Succession Act to state that any person succeeding to the Presidency under its terms and provisions is anything less than "President of the United States"; "Acting President" as an operative, legal term did not exist prior to the ratification of the 25th Amendment almost two decades later. 2600:1004:B158:AC7B:EDBE:44D7:839:9422 (talk) 00:29, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

The current succession act actually states that any officer beyond the vice president who succeeds to the office of president under any circumstances is Acting President, even if the president is deceased, has resigned, or has been removed. Article II also makes clear that if the vice president is unable (or is vacant), then Congress shall by law declare who shall act as president. If there is no vice president, the office is officially left vacant until the next election, and someone in the line of succession has the powers and duties of president in the meantime. One can easily question the merits of this, but that's the way it is. Of course, this raises the question of what would happen if an acting president were to appoint a new vice president under the 25th amendment- one of many reasons the succession act is a mess. Mdewman6 (talk) 00:43, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

The 25th Amendment is very precise when it uses the terms "President" and "Acting President," so the best reading of the 25th Amendment is that an Acting President would not be able to appoint a Vice President (only a President may do so). Such conclusion is consistent not only with the 25th Amendment's text, but also the structure of the Constitution.

For example, if no presidential candidate obtains a majority of electoral votes, the House gets to elect the president from among the top three electoral vote recipients, and the vote of 26 state delegations (i.e., California's 53 Representatives vote to see who gets one vote from CA, and Vermont's sole Representative gets to cast one vote from VT) are necessary for election. If on January 20 there is a VP elect (either because a candidate got 270 VP EVs or because no one did but the Senate elected a VP from between the top two VP electoral vote recipients), the VP elect will be sworn in as VP at noon and then immediately take the oath of office as Acting President. Because of the careful language of the 25th Amendment that does not permit such Acting President to appoint a VP, we would avoid a situation in which a new VP is appointed and confirmed (by simple majorities of each house) and then, a week later, the House finally elects a President, there would be two VPs (with the rightful VP no longer being Acting President). A VP who is Acting President does not stop being the VP (although he would be constitutionally ineligible from presiding over the Senate), so there is no VP vacancy to fill.

With respect to the mess that would occur were a Speaker to become Acting President, there is a reason why James Madison warned Congress in 1792 not to place congressional officers in the Line of Succession. I believe that the best reading of Article II's provision that Congress shall determine by legislation which "Officer" shall act as president when there is a vacancy or incapacity in both the presidency and VP is that only Article II officers (such as Cabinet members) may be in the Line of Succession; and in any event the Speaker and President Pro Tem are not "Officers of the United States" under the Constitution and thus have no business being deemed "Officers" for purposes of such provision. Congress should fix that post haste (and return to the 1886-1947 Line of Succession), but, unfortunately, politics will get in the way of that. AuH2ORepublican (talk) 04:36, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

A Vice President who is also Acting President does not nominate a new Vice President. Section 2 of the 25A comes into play only when "there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President." A Vice President does not vacate his office when becoming Acting President, as opposed to when he succeeds to the office of President. An Acting President has the powers and duties of President temporarily attached to his current office (Vice President). A real life example of this is Dick Cheney. In 2002 and 2007, President George W. Bush invoked Section 3 of the 25A. This transferred the powers and duties of President to Vice President Cheney, making him Acting President. Cheney was still Vice President, although with the presidential powers and duties added temporarily, and so could nominate a new Vice President.

As for the President Succession Act of 1947, I agree that it is a mess. However, when dealing with the scenario of no President-elect or VP-elect Section 3 of the 20A controls. That provision provides that Congress can say by law "who" (as opposed to "what Officer") shall be Acting President when there is no President-elect or VP-elect to be sworn in on Inauguration Day. So in that scenario it is perfectly Constitutional for the Speaker to become Acting President, although I strongly disagree with it on policy grounds (e.g., possible party shift). SMP0328. (talk) 06:50, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Let's consider the scenario in which, prior to Inauguration Day, a Vice President gets elected and qualifies, but a President doesn't. The most likely situation would be that, somehow, a VP candidate got a majority of the electoral vote and/or was elected by the Senate, but no presidential candidate got a majority of the EV and the House failed to elect. (This scenario doesn't cover someone being elected as President who has not yet qualified but will eventually do so - not 35 at the time of inauguration, etc.)

So, at noon on January 20, the VP-elect takes the oath and "acts" as President until a President qualifies. How would a President subsequently qualify? The House constitutionally has only one opportunity to elect. (Article II, Amendment XII, Amendment XX) The Constitution refers to a President subsequently qualifying, but provides no mechanism for it. I read that as saying that the VP (by whatever title) would have the Presidential power for the remainder of the term. So are you arguing that that person would have no Amendment XXV power to nominate a Vice President? Could Congress confirm the VP/AP as Vice President, and, since the presidency is vacant, that person would become President without modifier? There are holes that the Constitution doesn't address, but that's certainly beyond the scope of a Wikipedia discussion. JTRH (talk) 12:45, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

The House would not only have one opportunity to elect; it would continue to have the power to choose a President from among the three candidates before it. The Vice President would continue to be Acting President until one of the following occurred: (1) the House chose a President (thus the chosen person would "qualify" to be President), (2) the presidential term ended, or (3) the VP/AP left office (died, removed, or resigned). SMP0328. (talk) 13:54, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

I agree that a vice president who is acting president under either the 20th or 25th amendments cannot appoint a vice president under the 25th amendment, because the vice presidency is not vacant- the vice president remains vice president while being acting president. In contrast, I think it's an open question of whether anyone who becomes acting president via the Presidential Succession Act can appoint a vice president. Such an acting president would derive his position from Article II Section 1 Clause 6, not the 25th amendment, so one could argue that he has all enumerated powers for the presidency under the constitution, including nominating a vice president. The question then becomes what would happen if this were to occur. One possibility is that one or both houses of Congress refuse to recognize the acting president's authority to do this and refuse to confirm the nominee, which would certainly be their prerogative. But what if the nominee is confirmed and becomes vice president? Technically, if the presidency is vacant due to a "case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation" then once could argue that upon confirmation the vice president would immediately succeed to the presidency via the 25th amendment. Alternatively, one could make a logic argument that Section 1 and Section 2 of the 25th amendment were never meant to interact in this manner, and Section 1 refers to a vice president in office at the time the "case" occurs. In the latter case, an acting president might be interested in reestablishing the line of succession, if Congress approves. If the former understanding were accepted, an acting president might nominate a new vice president to take over the presidency who would at least gain the ratification of Congress, seeing himself merely as a caretaker who should be in office only as long as necessary to navigate a crisis. Or, it's not completely far-fetched that an acting president would nominate himself as vice president in order to fully become president via the 25th amendment and gain the ratification of Congress. The problem with this latter interpretation goes back to Article II, which states that an acting president serving because the presidency is vacant (not a inability/disability) shall serve until a president be elected. The "bumping" provisions on the current Presidential Succession Act violate this, another of its many faults. Therefore, there is a cogent constitutional argument that a new vice president cannot succeed an acting president, except due to the acting president's own inability, death, removal, or resignation. (Of course, the 25th amendment does not directly address the possibility of disability on the part of the vice president or an acting president.)

As for the highly unlikely case of an acting president serving under the 20th amendment due to an inability of both a president-elect and a vice president-elect to qualify, or perhaps the death of a president-elect and the failure of the vice president to qualify, it's again unclear. I would argue that if a vice president-elect exists but cannot serve (say, because he is 34 years of age), then vice presidency is not vacant and an acting president cannot appoint a replacement vice president. If there is no vice president, for instance because the Senate did not choose one in a contingent election, then I would argue the acting president could certainly choose to nominate a vice president. The Senate could then either choose to confirm the acting president's choice (along with the House) or succeed in fulfilling its contingent election, or continue to do nothing. In this way, the technical constitutional powers of an acting president are checked in this case by Congress, as all these scenarios are political questions that may not be decided in the same way for every set of circumstances.

We are running a bit afoul of WP:forum here, but this is useful and important discussion. If anyone is aware of actual scholarly discussion of these issues (as opposed to these hypothetical thought experiments I have shared), or sources from the writing of the 25th amendment that demonstrates a consideration of them at the time, please share! Mdewman6 (talk) 19:23, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Removal of presidential navigation templates

@Drdpw: Not interested in starting an edit war over this. Please provide justifications from WP:NAV and WP:NAVBOX for your reversion. Upon reviewing the policy, it is unclear that using the president templates are extraneous and not preferable to the navigation template for Lists of acts of the United States Congress. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 13:28, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

I see that you are adding navboxes of presidents to several legislation related articles, and have re-added them here. Why bother discussing their value/relevancy. Drdpw (talk) 15:48, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Why bother discussing their value/relevancy. Not sure I understand your previous comment. I am contending that your reversion does not follow the criteria and recommendations of WP:NAV and WP:NAVBOX. The inclusion of the Presidential Succession Act article in the George Washington, Grover Cleveland, and Harry S. Truman navigation templates meets at least three of the criteria for good navboxes:

1. "All articles within a template relate to a single, coherent subject." As I noted in the discussion on my talk page: "Under the Presentment Clause of Article I, Section VII of the U.S. Constitution, a bill becomes a law only if: 1. The President signs the bill into law; 2. Congress overrides a presidential veto of the bill; 3. The President does not act on the bill within 10 days (Sundays and when Congress is out of session excepted)."
2. "The subject of the template should be mentioned in every article." Likewise, as I noted in the discussion on my talk page: "I can understand that not every article at present will mention the President, but that can very easily be changed."
3. "There should be a Wikipedia article on the subject of the template." Every President of the United States has a biography article and there is an article for each of their Presidencies.

By contrast, the Lists of acts of the United States Congress template does not even include the Presidential Succession Act article because the article itself is not a list of acts of Congress. The more relevant navigation templates are ones having to do with the President that signed the bill into law or the presidential administration that first effectuated the law. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 16:34, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

No one has argued that these aren't good navboxes. The issue is that they add no value to this article. The presidents themselves are already linked, and someone reading this article is unlikely to be looking for other links about those presidents. Including the navboxes here is just clutter. Dan Bloch (talk) 17:59, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

... someone reading this article is unlikely to be looking for other links about those presidents. Per WP:NAVBOX, one of the advantages of a navigation template is that "They provide an organized resource for readers who went through an article in some broad topic to find other articles on the same broad topic, rather than making those readers 'go fish' for articles wiki-linked in the text". I'm not persuaded that it is self-evident that someone reading the Presidential Succession Act article would be unlikely to be looking for information about the Presidents that signed the acts into law and the other decisions of their administrations. If someone interested in the history of U.S. public policy in general is reading an article about a specific law or policy enacted and effectuated by a specific presidential administration, it may very well be that such a reader would be interested in the other decisions of that presidential administration in general.

The presidents themselves are already linked... Including the navboxes here is just clutter. While the WP:NENAT section on "Individuals" notes that "Not every notable individual that has his or her own article ... needs a template or even a category named after them", it also states that "Templates for Presidents of the United States, in this case, navboxes, have enough articles about them or that are related to them for there to warrant a template." While WP:ATC recommends against including multiple templates in the same article that give the same information and templates that duplicate information already in included in the article body, the Washington, Cleveland, and Truman templates share only the link to the Presidential Succession Act article and are otherwise non-overlapping, and the Presidential Succession Act article includes only links to the biography articles rather than the Washington, Cleveland, and Truman presidency articles about their administrations.

To reiterate what I said in the discussion on my talk page, "I generally agree that biographical navboxes should be kept to articles about the President as a person, but for some presidential administrations, particularly during the 19th century when few administrations did much of long-term historical significance to how the federal government operates, I would argue instead that it would be unnecessary to create a separate navigation template for the administration." Also, "While I can appreciate that the length of some of these navigation templates will grow to the point where they should be broken into separate templates, that does not mean that the articles should not be included in navigation templates for presidential administrations. It just means that the templates should be split into separate templates. I've made similar arguments about articles related to Supreme Court cases. There is a need to keep articles related to U.S. public policy easily navigable, and in my experience, content issues in general with articles typically do not get addressed if they are only included on categories and lists." -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 19:57, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, but I don't see any additional arguments here. You say I'm not persuaded that it is self-evident that someone reading the Presidential Succession Act article would be unlikely to be looking for information about the Presidents that signed the acts into law and the other decisions of their administrations, but haven't given me any reason to think they would be. Indeed, a casual reader (which is most of our readers) probably won't even notice who signed the bills into law, and will just be puzzled by these navboxes.

Aside from this, you've said that presidents should have navboxes and that there's no overlap between these three navboxes, but I agree with this. It wasn't part of my argument. And you've said that the templates shouldn't be split, which again I agree with. Dan Bloch (talk) 01:18, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, but I don't see any additional arguments here. ... Indeed, a casual reader (which is most of our readers) probably won't even notice who signed the bills into law, and will just be puzzled by these navboxes. I did present additional arguments. I cited the WP:NENAT and WP:ATC policies because you argued that inclusion of the navboxes would qualify as clutter, but it is hardly clear that they are clutter per those WP:CLUTTER policies. I would add that you have presented your argument without evidence or citing a specific content or manual of style policy. Casual readers do skim articles as part of browsing the website, but I would note that browsing is what navigation templates help to facilitate so they do add value to the article for casual readers. Per WP:NAVBOX, three two of the other advantages of the navigation templates are:

1. That they are "[f]aster to navigate than a category";
2. That they "[give] immediate information to equivalent elements"; and
3. "They provide an organized resource for readers who went through an article in some broad topic to find other articles on the same broad topic, rather than making those readers 'go fish' for articles wiki-linked in the text or in the 'See also' section."

Additionally, including the presidential navigation templates is an improvement over including the Lists of acts of the United States Congress navigation template that the Presidential Succession Act article was not even included in because the presidential navigation templates are more directly related to the article than lists of every act passed by Congress. Perhaps you don't feel that a reader would be interested, but I would reiterate my other additional argument that "If someone interested in the history of U.S. public policy in general is reading an article about a specific law or policy enacted and effectuated by a specific presidential administration, it may very well be that such a reader would be interested in the other decisions of that presidential administration in general." I am also skeptical that a casual reader would be puzzled at the inclusion of the templates on an article about a U.S. federal law, unless they are completely unfamiliar with how U.S. federal laws are enacted in the first place. However, even if that is the case, I do not believe that is a justification for removing them; the reader can simply open the templates if they are puzzled. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 14:12, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

That is well and good, but not a justification for including the presidents's navboxes in this article. In general, biographical navboxes do not belong in legislation articles. Anyone reading this article who desires broader information about the presidents that signed the acts into law or the other decisions of their administrations can simply click on the inline link to the president. This holds true for the sponsors of the legislation, and various other individuals connected to this subject. Drdpw (talk) 16:06, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

That is well and good, but not a justification for including the presidents's navboxes in this article. In general, biographical navboxes do not belong in legislation articles. Anyone reading this article who desires broader information about the presidents that signed the acts into law or the other decisions of their administrations can simply click on the inline link to the president. Per the recommendations about the advantages of navigation templates and criteria for good navigation templates that I've already cited, I would argue that your assertion that presidential administration navigation templates do not belong in articles about legislation is inconsistent with the WP:NAVBOX policy. To reiterate, the in-line links are to the biography articles and not the presidency articles, and creating separate navigation templates for presidential administrations separate from biography navigation templates for certain presidential administrations would probably qualify as clutter per WP:NENAT and WP:ATC. Your assertions are also made without reference to any content or manual of style policy. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 20:39, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Since there's no consensus that these navboxes should be added, I've removed them from the article. Dan Bloch (talk) 03:35, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. If there were a navbox for 'United States presidential succession law' or perhaps even a more general 'United States presidential succession' navbox, that would be an appropriate navbox for this article. Drdpw (talk) 14:12, 11 February 2024 (UTC)